Dev Update - Cooking and Farming In this update we take a look at Antilia's Cooking and Farming systems.

Hello everyone! My apologies for the lack of updates on the website and on Patreon. Although I've been a bit quieter, work on Antilia has continued along. The focus currently is on finishing the cooking and farming systems, as part of a "Cooking, Fishing, and Farming" test build.

Cooking and Food Craftables

Antilia now has a cooking system, built upon the same crafting system used for clothing and weapons. Food in Antilia will still be used to recharge health and energy - without food the health bar will not slowly refill, and energy will only charge very slowly.

Initially a new character might start by gathering wild ingredients and eating those - but raw ingredients are limited in strength and won't last long. I'm planning on a couple NPCs that'll teach the player a few basic recipes using local wild ingredients. These won't unlock any food "craftables", they only provide a recipe tray which can be used to craft the local foods.

A selection of crafted foods.

Food Craftables

As a character performs quests for the  Taipii Chefs Guild they'll unlock food craftables. Food craftables allow a character to design custom foods by picking a design and then selecting ingredients.

The food craftables that can currently be designed and crafted in-game include:

• Flatbread
  
• Fruit Salad
  
• Jelly Dessert
  
• Salad
  
• Simple Meal
  
• Sandwich
  
• Skewer
  
• Soup
  
• Packed Meal (won't spoil)
  

Current list of food craftables as presented in the game.

Designing Foods

By visiting a design workstation a character can design a custom food from their unlocked food craftables. After selecting a food craftable the player is presented with a list of options for plating options, ingredient selection, and naming their recipe.

As the player selects ingredients a preview of their food design is displayed.

Flavor Profiles

Alongside the visual preview of the crafted food the crafting interface displays statistics for the crafted item. While designing foods selecting ingredients may affect the health or energy recharging amounts, the shelf life of the food, and how long the food lasts after consumed.

Different ingredients will also change the flavor profile of the food. In the future NPCs may request foods of a specific type that contain a specific ingredient or flavor profile as a crafting challenge.

The selection of ingredients determines the flavor profile and effects of the food.

Food Spoilage

Of course most foods and ingredients will spoil, and I've reworked the way food spoilage occurs to Antilia. I've added a generic system for "inventory item transformations" and a "container environment" system. These new systems work together and allow me to set up rules for transforming one item type into another. For example food and ingredients are configured to spoil only when "frost" energy is absent. Another example of "inventory item transformations" are eggs - which incubate and hatch only when "flame" energy is present.

Currently I plan for "spoiled food" to be an ingredient for fertilizer.

Food and ingredients now spoil into a "spoiled food" item that can be used for farming.

Food Status Effects

When a character's stomach is empty they will now receive a status effect to remind them. (Have I mentioned that Antilia now has a status effect system?)

If a character does not have food in their stomach they will acquire the 'Hungry' status effect.

Hydration

Hydration is now implemented as an optional character gameplay mechanism.
If a character's hydration reaches 0 (and they have the Hydration requirement enabled) they will receive the "Dehydrated" status effect. This status effect caps max energy at 50% and reduces energy recharge.

The hydration meter in the food panel shows current hydration.

Farming

Before a character can cook they need ingredients, and to get those they'll need to gather, farm, or purchase them. I've set up an ingredient vendor in Tasii Garden, but there's not much profit in cooking when paying shop prices for ingredients.

For farming a character will first need to own property to build planters upon. Once a character has access to a planter they will also need some seeds. Simply place the seeds into the planter and provide fertilizer.

For most plants to grow they need the following things:

• Light
  
• Water
  
• Stone (Typically provided to the planter via the Fertilizer slot)
  

So long as a plant has these three environmental requirements met they will grow, and once fully grown they will start to produce fruits.

A work-in-progress view of the crop planter. Notice the requirement for fertilizer to grow plants.

Sickle and Harvesting

Some plants can be harvested by simply clicking on them, while others now require the use of a sickle tool to gather from.

A sickle is now required to gather some ingredients.

Miiraun Inventory Trays

As I alluded to above on the topics of spoilage and farming, containers now have an "environment" for item transformations. For example when Flame energy is present in a container eggs will be incubated and hatch.

I've added a new system whereby characters trained in  Miiraun Magic will be able to create inventory trays and take some control over the "environment" that items are in. Trays can be created in any of the 12 Miiraun elements plus Renewal and Decay.

A selection of Miiraun enhanced inventory trays. Items placed in these trays will receive energy from the tray.

As I mentioned at the start of the Farming section plants require water, light, and stone energies. By using miiraun trays mages can "cheat" one of those requirements away.

• Light Tray - When plants are grown in a light tray, they can grow and produce fruit at night or indoors.
  
• Stone Tray - When plants are placed in a stone tray they grow without fertilizer in the planter.
  
• Water Tray - When plants are placed in a water tray they do not need to be watered.*
  

As more item transformations are added to the game the opportunities to use these trays will grow.

When placed in an open container such as a table or planter a Miiraun Inventory Tray is rendered with an effect. These tables have flame and shadow trays in them.

A water tray placed into a crop planter.

That's all for this update, thanks for reading!