Today I have something exciting to share with you all. Julala, the creator of the Jinx Second Life Centaur and other such creatures, is making a game. This will be a foraging and cultivating roleplay game.
I’m going to be working through the initial process of starting the game, as an Alpha tester (and am posting these previews with explicit permission from Julala). This means following a series of set tasks and providing feedback on what does or doesn’t work as expected. It also means by the time you play the game, the messages or images you see may be quite different.
The first steps are adding the Meter and HUD.
Using the HUD buttons you will create an account on the Herb & Fable website by submitting your email address into the dialog box and following the instructions. The website then stores all your achievements and stats as you play.
You will be able to customise your Profile page with a photo and change the name displayed (which by default is your login email address).
You will also choose a Class and a Gender, which includes a non-binary option. There may be some expansion or customisation of this using a label of some kind later.
You will also have two additional HUDs to wear; a Pouch for in-game currency (not Linden Dollars) and a Bag that will contain your collected items & ingredients.
So now I’m all set-up, time for some basic tasks to see how the game works.
Task: Boiling water
Simples!
Task : Growing Cleavers
This consisted of fetching more water from the well and planting seeds in a soil bed, then havesting them.
This process takes aboutt 30 minutes, you don’t have to stand and watch over them.
Task: Cleaver Juice
Once my Cleavers were grown I was able to harvest them to make juice with. It’s also possible to forage from other people’s plant beds, to gain a Foraging badge.
The produced glass of Cleavers juice contains 3 servings and can be drunk to restore lost health points.
Task: Incense
This involved grinding some cinnamon using a pestle & mortar, before using it in an incense burner.
I think for now that’s enough to give you an idea of how this game will work. These simple steps will all be combined to make recipes for different things, such as a cake, which I’ll be attempting next.
There are also a number of Rituals that Julula has made; Protection , Yule and Winter Solstice. These animated set peices are already available to purchase, including a voucher for an update to Herb & Fable versions when the game is released.
I mentioned the website earlier and that’s quite important. As I completed the tasks I earned badges for them, grouped into different categories/disciplines. As you play the game you may choose to specialise in one particular area.
Bear in mind that the dialog boxes and messages you will see may be quite different from those shown, by the time they’re publicly released. There will be capabilities for third-party creators to make items for the game as well.
Herb & Fable Links: