The Ushi No Tane websites specialize in information, FAQs, and guides about the Nintendo console versions of the Harvest Moon, Story of Seasons, and Legend of the River King video games. These game genres are created and published in Japan by Marvelous (JP). In other regions, you'll find Natsume, XSeed Games/Marvelous (USA), Marvelous (EU), and Rising Star involved in the series' release.

The latest version of the mainstream farming series that have been released in various regions of the world are:

• Japan: Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar (August 2025)
• North America: Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home Special Edition (October 2025) and Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar (August 2025)
• Europe: Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home Special Edition (October 2025) and Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar (August 2025)

The latest version of River King, in all regions of the world, is River King: Mystic Valley (JP 2007, NA 2008, EU 2009).

Since 2000, Ushi no Tane has been run by a grouchy old lady who happens to be fond of video game agriculture along with two feline helpers: Intern Captain Bootu and Intern Hondo Mewnaka. The website is not officially affiliated, sponsored, endorsed, or employed by the developers of Harvest Moon, Story of Seasons, or River King. This is simply a fan site.

Latest Farming Video Game News

Happy Farm'n Friday! I'm still annoyed about the coleus crop wipe-out (grr...), but there's no time to give up on growing stuff! The vegetable when-to-start chart noted that it's time to begin planting tomatoes and melons indoors. So far, the tomato seedlings have started to sprout (Starlight Grape and Tomimaru), but nothing yet with our cross-pollinated watermelons from last summer. It can take a while for watermelon seeds to germinate, though. Let's hope they're viable!

Now that we're officially past the last-frost date (finally, I hope!), last weekend I also planted some carrot seeds and those dang radish seeds I've been trying to successfully harvest. For years I've only been able to harvest more radish seeds from the plants instead of the actual root vegetable. The weather should remain fairly mild until mid-July, which should be more than enough time for them to grow without bolting. Though anticipated, average weather has turned into unexpected, extraordinary weather more often than I'd like.

I wonder if there is a when-to-start chart for flowers? I could use that, for sure.

I'm still playing Rune Factory 5, and recently met Scarlett. I don't know what her problem is! She's so mean! Also, I somehow recruited a random SEED ranger to be my hit point support person. During the fish variety contest, I used up my RP and was taking HP hits while fishing, and suddenly this blue-outfit Seed dude showed up in a swirl of fancy cut-scene to refill my hit points. I was not expecting to be on the receiving end of unsolicited heals. Can Terry do that too? 'Cuz that'd be awesome if he randomly popped in, showered my girl in hit-point glitter while yelling "A MYSTERY IS AFOOT!", then poofing away back to his house to figure out why my HP was low in the first place.

Two Weeks Left for PuffPals KS

The cutesy sky-farming and exploration project, PuffPals: Island Skies has 14 days left on its Kickstarter campaign and has blown waaaaay past its initial goal of $75,000. The crowdfunding campaign is about $900,000 and still increasing. Can Fluffnest reach $1 million for their farming game development? The stretch goal at that level is to add multiplayer functionality to the game, so there's a good chance that we could have a $1,000,000 funded game soon.

DEADCRAFT - Zombie Farming?

Marvelous announced this week that a new end-of-the-world crafting and farming game called DEADCRAFT will be released on May 19 A free demo of the game is available on Steam, Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4/5, and XBox One/X/S. Fair warning: the below trailer is a bit bloody and weird!

A farm the dead to stay alive game, the protagonist is tasked with helping out the local slum-town residents while working on finding out what happened that caused his zombie-hunting partner's death. Decades ago, meteors destroyed the planet and severely damaged humanity by bringing a pandemic virus that reanimated the dead. Now the world is covered in zombies. The surviving humans congregated into make-shift cities ruled by bad dudes. These bad dudes are super bad. Like, revenge-level bad.

Not typically my style of farming game, but I might as well give it a try!

The game uses an action point system similar to what you would find in Rune Factory. Taking actions (fighting, crafting, etc.) take energy points, and when those are used up, actions will use hit points instead. Ideally, players should watch their energy level to not damage their health. You also have to watch the protagonist's hunger and thirst, as having those levels low will also negatively impact movement. The hunger/thirst system is difficult to juggle until the reduce-hunger and reduce-thirst skills are unlocked.

The "farm" area in the demo comes with Sludge (i.e., gross water) collectors and a small 3x3 field plot. Tilling the soil simply requires you to interact with the soil, then you plant some seeds and water the crops using Sludge or "Aqua Cola," the filtered version of Sludge. After a few days, the crops can be harvested. The crops can then be turned over as part of a mission quest, though cooking them into hunger-recovery food is best.

The farm also comes with a crafting table that can be used to craft weapons and farm supplies such as more 3x3 fields. You'll need to learn recipes to craft goods. The crafting recipes are unlocked by interacting with townsfolk and spending skill points in the game's skill-point tree. The downside to crafting is that a 5-second animation plays every time an item is crafted. Luckily, you can disable the crafting cut scene by enabling the Text Skip option in the game's settings.

The fun farming starts kicking in once you unlock the ability to grow your own zombies. Sometimes after dispatching a baddie, you can collect a corpse that can be crafted into a zombie seedling. The seedling is then planted on the farm field, watered using zombie blood, and after a few days, the zombie is ready for harvest! The farm-grown zombies have cute flowers on their heads to distinguish them from the normal nasty zombies, and the weapons they equip are whatever the person had when they were alive. Yes, you can kill the human townsfolk and local bandits and transform their corpses into your undead battle buddy by planting them on your farm.

Auuu, aren't they cute! The zombie companions follow the protagonist around, attacking other zombies and other aggressive bad people. Though, I discovered that if they go off to fight something and you leave the map, the zombie buddy disappears... sorry about that zombie #1...

Besides weapons, farm-grown zombies also have health statistics such as muscle mass, bone density, blood circulation, and strength bonus. The demo didn't go into whether the head flower color could change or how to increase the quality of the zombie crop.

The zombie blood water can also be sprinkled on normal crops to make zombiefied crops like purple Hybrid Pumpkins.

The mix of farming and crafting feels a bit like My Time at Portia and other similar games, but with wandering undead, lots of gory scenes, and some colorful language scattered here and there. Maybe with a mix of Atomicrops flare with its post-apocalypse crop mutations.

The game costs $24.99 and has two DLC options available for $8 each. The content DLC unlocks more post-story adventures and missions that probably could have been included in the main game, but you know how it is nowadays.

A deluxe edition is available for preorder for about $40. This edition contains the two DLC, an in-game bonus outfit, and additional starting materials like extra Aqua Cola, Tomato Seeds, and Pumpkin seeds.

Until next time!

Cher
(Auuu, I ran out of potting soil...)

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