Developer: ConcernedApe
Rrp: £10.99 (Gog.com, Humblebundle and Steam)
I’ve never played any of the Animal Crossing or Harvest Moon games, the whole ‘life simulator’ genre has never been one that has ever interested me. I play games to experience things I could never do (or would never want to) in reality, not so that I can plant seeds, I already have a garden that I begrudgingly maintain I don’t need a game to give me that experience. I have real life chores to do, why on earth would I do them in a game? I thought that perhaps Stardew Valley would be a bit different though because it includes combat with creatures, so maybe it won’t feel like a list of chores to do. Oh, how wrong I was.
I do want to stress that I don’t think this game is bad, in fact from having sunk about twenty hours into the thing I can definitely say that this game is well made, however its just not for me. It has a great wealth of content to unlock through your farming, foraging, mining etc. It even has a romance system that allows you to pick your partner by giving them gifts (once you work out what they like). Your character gets to participate in events within the nearby town and you get to see them grow from an ex office drone and into a full fledged farmer.
This game is a relaxing affair, in fact it was a bit too relaxing for me as I kept drifting off. The only way I found I could power through it was by muting the music and having a podcast running in the background, even then I found myself zoning out every so often.
While this game isn’t my cup of tea I can and will recommend it to anyone who enjoys this genre.
