Garden Life: A cozy simulator is, you guessed it, a cozy garden simulator. It’s a game about planting flowers, enjoying their growth and decorating the garden to your heart’s content. The focus is on non-punitive gameplay, a light-hearted story, and a stunning anime-inspired art style. But beneath that adorable exterior, you might be surprised at how much thought and computing power went into the simulation itself.
At Stillalive Studios we pride ourselves on our expertise in simulation games and the underlying technology. As we started fleshing out the idea of a gardening game, we realized that it would be easy enough to create the basic simulation – some of our studios have degrees in quantum physics. But the challenge we set for ourselves was this: could we create a garden game that hides all the simulation complexity under a coziness as comfortable as a cup of warm tea on a cold winter evening?
Our producer is a florist
It all starts with Kay, our producer. She’s the one who manages it Garden life Project at Stillalive. Kay knows a lot about flowers, having worked as a florist in her previous professional life. Kay created floral arrangements for parties and weddings and won prestigious gold and silver medals at the world famous Chelsea Flower Show in London. This knowledge had to use it sensibly in a cozy garden game. With her on the team, we had one of the puzzle pieces ready – next we had to conquer the technology ourselves.
Why does garden life need a lot of technology?
Computers aren’t particularly good at randomness: the little quirks and irregularities that make nature so diverse and interesting. When artists create 3D models, the computer will always accurately recreate those models. We couldn’t imagine anything less cozy than a garden full of identical flowers, like a legion of stormtroopers growing in lockstep. And here our engineering department set out to find ways to break these patterns – by adding randomness and quirks back to the cold determinism of computer processors.
Flowers often only play a background role in games. But in a garden game, flowers take center stage. You have to look stunning. So one of our design goals was to make each flower look unique. So unique that a full flower garden would look natural like in real life. No copies. No stormtroopers. No tricks.
This is where our sim background shines
Every flower model in Garden life is generated on the fly. This is our recipe:
- Flowering begins at the ground where the first stem segment emerges and grows.
- When the segment is finished, a new segment is created.
- The growth direction of the new segment is shifted in a random direction so that the stem does not grow in a straight line.
- With each new segment, and depending on the flower, there is a random chance that a leaf will grow from the stem or that the stem will split into two segments.
- The more segments the plant produces, the greater the chance of producing the last flower at the top and thus completing the growth process.
- Depending on the type of flower, the tip will receive another push in a random direction for good measure.
This simple recipe allows for lots of variety and creates organic, beautiful looking flower beds. Each flower has leaves in different places. Some stems are shorter, others longer, with random variations in growth direction here and there.
To reflect the variety of flowers in the game, there is a slight variation of this recipe for each specimen. How big and long are the stem segments? Like straight, interwoven? How many segments can there be to determine the total height of a plant? And while sunflowers grow very tall and have a single stem, hellebores grow in small clumps, and roses grow right to the front in the bushy, tangled structure.
As mentioned above, computers are not very good at dealing with randomness. While there are tricks to making hundreds of identical models run smoothly, it’s been a long and winding road to optimize performance for on-the-fly generated 3D geometry. We are very happy with the result! Combined with our anime-inspired art style, Garden Life looks great and promises many hours of relaxing gameplay.
Garden life releases today for Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One.
Garden Life: A cozy simulator
Nacon
$39.99
Bring an abandoned property back to life using appropriate gardening techniques and your creativity and experience the joy and peace that comes with tending your own garden. • Roll up your sleeves – at Garden Life there is no magic solution: your plants will only thrive with dedication, the right tools and suitable gardening techniques! • DESIGN THE GARDEN OF YOUR DREAMS – Grid-free placement allows you to sow the seeds of your choice and add decorative elements to bring your designs to life. Through procedural growth simulation technology developed specifically for Garden Life, each plant is unique and adapts to its environment. • TAKE CARE OF YOUR GARDEN – Take care of your seedlings by identifying their individual care needs. Water, fertilize and trim your plants to preserve their natural beauty and keep them healthy. • DISCOVER DIFFERENT VARIETIES – Unleash your creativity by growing beautiful variations and discovering the full potential of each plant. • MEET COLORFUL CHARACTERS – Help your friendly neighbors by fulfilling their gardening needs and earn rewards like new plant varieties, tools and decorations. • RELAX – Unwind after a busy day and experience the calming atmosphere of your garden in a calming world with relaxing sights and sounds.
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