Pocket Meadow

What it is

A man who cleaned offices at night finds an old card in a village shop window: a meadow by the woods, free to whoever will live there. He takes a ficus the office threw out and leaves the city.

The game starts on that overgrown meadow. You clear the weeds, plant wheat and strawberries, raise chickens and cows, bake bread and fill orders for the neighbours. Nothing is in a hurry: no energy, no penalties for a break, and it plays offline. The farm is only half the point. Seven shy guests live in the woods — a butterfly, a bee, a bird, a rabbit, a squirrel, a fox and a deer — and they come only when the meadow is cosy, sometimes leaving a small gift.

What I did

• Game design and economy: crops, animals, workshops, orders, quests and the pace of the first fifteen minutes, checked with a simulated new player.
• The game in Unity 6 and C#: data-driven content, a placement and move mode for buildings and decorations, a save system with migrations, and more than 900 automated tests.
• A 70-second cinematic intro rendered in Blender, plus a 30-second store trailer and a seasonal one.
• Seasonal live events by device date — the Pumpkin Festival with its own crop, recipe, quests, guest, lighting and music.
• Monetization: rewarded ads and a soft interstitial cap through LevelPlay, a GamePass subscription with a free trial, and packs — on Google Play Billing and the App Store.
• The release: store listings in three languages, a landing page, privacy and terms, Android and iOS builds.

Notes

The interesting problem is the first session. The tests were green, but one honest tester said she didn’t know what to do and kept waiting for something to happen. A simulated “slow new player” found the gaps — moments with no hint on screen — and one real dead end: a hungry chicken with no feed. The fix was not a faster economy but a hand that points at the next step after a pause.