I think it would be a good idea if we could have more than just two children. Every real-life family I know has at least three or four kids, so it would make the game more realistic, and big families feel cosier. Another idea is that we could have age progression on kids, so maybe each season/two seasons/year they could progress a stage. There'd be infant, maybe toddler (not priority), child, teenager, and then there could be an option for them to move out when they're an adult, or continue living on the farm. Each stage would have certain things the kids could do. For example, a child would be able to feed coop animals or maybe water plants, a teenager could do most of the things adults could do, like feeding all the animals, watering plants, harvesting things (plants would go into player's inventory or a chest). I think these would give the game more life and encourage people to keep playing after the third year.
All I can say is... o.ob Though, advancing a stage a season would be...interesting, heh. Maybe have the child go from infant to toddler to CHILD within a few seasons...but then it would take a full game year to reach teenager, etc. Make it so when they become a "Child" they go to get tutored by Penny along with Jas and Vincent, as well! Also, make it so you can set your children up with the women/men you DIDN'T pick as your wife when they become an adult.
Yea I posted something similar to this earlier today :b. I really want more progression with the children.
The children definitely need more work. I think a more glaring issue is the pregnancy and childbirth. I got married to Abigail Fall 15 and by mid Winter, she plopped out a baby. The 'talk' about having children is a nice touch, but afterwards, the only mention of a child was the night she gave birth. Having them grow up, help out on the farm, and move out would be another nice touch.
I want a cutscene with the two of them at the doctor's with the doc saying: "yup, she's pregnant!"...and then the dialogue 'exchange' between the two of you as a result. Maybe even have a sprite that updates as she gets further along in her pregnancy, to give you a gauge for when the child will be born (maybe even some dialogue to reflect this, with typical dialogue that you hear pregnant women say and stuff, heh). As it progresses, her sprite's belly gets bigger, basically. ^^ While she's pregnant, she could make a trip into town to the doctor's office for checkups or something, as well...which would give them another reason to be "off the farm" and not just putzing around in the house all day every day!
I'd love to see your kids get older and eventually be able to help with the farm. I'd also like to see the other bachelors/bachelorettes get together and have kids who could later come to help on the farm.
And/or your kids marrying the other bachelors/bachelorettes...and...have your grandchildren come help out on the farm...or have YOUR child and THEIR children get married! Etc! ENDLESS OPTIONS!!
Wow, that all may be pretty hard to code, though. Having the children age into adults would mean having to age the other kids into adults, and it would probably also mean having to age up the player character, the spouse, bachelors and bachelorettes, the other townsfolk and any children the eligible people have after hooking up. It's almost The Sims-level coding, and as much as it would be awesome if it could happen, I don't think the medium itself is that flexible. There's nothing stopping CA from letting the babies age into toddlers and eventual children, though. They could do small-time chores and maybe be in charge of taking care of the pet, attend tutoring sessions with Penny and the other children, and maybe offer up the occasional minigame (things like tag, hide-and-seek, and jumping rope, with maybe the addition of snowball fights in the winter) to keep the player entertained and keep their relationship up. Again, this is a kind of limited medium and coding anything too big would take forever anyway, but I agree that it'd be way more fun and fitting for the game to see them take on a more important role than just a bunch of pixels taking up space in your home. And by the way, yes, I really want the pregnancy/adoption to be a bigger deal than it currently is. I want doctor visits, excited spouses, pregnancy bellies, progress reports, emotional birth/first meeting scene, everything. It's way too unsatisfying just to hear, "Hey, you're/I'm pregnant" and "Hey your baby was born/dropped off last night".
Yeah. I'm not sure about the "birth scene" being necessary...but the rest...is really necessary, imo. I'm perfectly fine with them just aging to be Jas and Vincent's age, so they can do what you said and give you some mini-games, take on small tasks (like taking care of the pet, taking care of petting one barn/coop's animals and picking up their drops, etc.), and get tutored by Penny. If Penny's your wife, she could even tutor them at home, if CA wanted to!
Lol, that'd be awkward. No, I meant more like the spouse waking up your player/your player waking up your spouse in the middle of the night because the baby's coming and then cutting to a few hours later when Harvey/Maru's saying both mom and child are perfectly healthy, followed by a few minutes of alone time in the hospital room while your spouse talks about how amazing it is to be a parent, or a conversation to a similar extent, since I think each spouse would take it differently. Showing the actual birth would be incredibly unsettling. Yeah, that'd be pretty cool. At the very least, Penny could give the kid(s) additional tutoring at home and have them either react positively (talking to the player about how cool a subject they'd learned that day was) or negatively (complaining to the player about Mom's constant lessons). There are really a lot of opportunities there.
Haha, yeah. Their responses could depend on a setting on whether they're "smarter" or more "average". Basically...whether they like school or not, heh. There could also be a scene where you and Penny have a convo in this case, where she asks if continuing to teach them at home outside of the time with Jas and Vincent might be too much...in which case you can choose whether they continue to be taught at home as well, or if it's limited to just when she's teaching Jas and Vincent. It opens up a lot of potential for post-marriage interactions between Penny and your children.
It definitely does. I hope stuff like this will (if not soon then at least eventually) be added in. At the moment, there isn't much use in having kids at all.
I think this is a great idea, hehe. But it would be kinda weird; wouldn't other character have to age as well then? Like in HM:AWL?
I would rather have the 2 kids fully developed rather than a bunch of faceless kids. Quality over quantity. 2 kids are enough for me. Most Harvest Moon games only have 1 kid.
Well, yea I agree with you there. If the kids have good personalities, or you can kind of decide their personalities by who you talk to would be cool, like HM:AWL
While this sounds good and realistic, I cannot imagine the coding involved in moving the AI..... I assume Vincent and Jas needs to grow up too-- and that might create its own work.
It might be strange but since its a game you could get away with just aging the characters kids I wouldn't be bothered by it if they could help on the farm.
