I don’t understand gardening, but my wife loves it. We live 200 metres from a Woolworths, so I’d prefer to just go and buy some tomatoes, but different strokes for different folks, am I right? At GDC, the creators of Bastion revealed that early iterations of the game actually had, believe it or not, a gardening feature.
“We were super, super excited about gardening on the team,” said Supergiant Games Studio Director Amir Rao, speaking at GDC.
Apparently the game had a mechanic that would allow players to plant seeds, which would then grow and develop into upgrades or other in-game areas.
“You might find a seed for a whole new world to explore,” said Rao. “You’d bring it back to the Bastion and you’d have these planters that would open up gradually.
“If you only have four planters you’d have to choose – do I plant this new interesting thing that I got that I don’t know what it does, or this other seed that I do know what it does?
“You would water your plants with cores – which were these blue things you’d find out in the world. Slowly you’d get a sprout, you’d see what it would grow into and then suddenly you’d have its fruit. Every time you opened the fruit you would get a binary, interesting choice.”
Apparently the feature was canned simply because it was too difficult to explain to players. The upgrade system was adapted into the menu and that was all she wrote.
In short — it’s easier to go to Woolworths and buy tomatoes instead of growing them.
Bastion’s axed gardening feature revealed [Eurogamer]
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