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: A Wonderful Life (January 2023)
• North America: Harvest Moon: The Winds of Anthos (September 2023) and Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life (June 2023)
• Europe: Harvest Moon: The Winds of Anthos (October 2023) and Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life (June 2023)

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! The outdoor bows for the garlands should arrive soon, which was expected to finish the Christmas Light Extravaganza. But then I ordered more strings to cover up a bare spot on the porch! Need more lights! This weekend, there is expected to be a deluge of rain caused by an "atmospheric river," with the county going into flood alert until early next week and a windstorm warning for Saturday night. There are better times to be outside putting up lights. Bah.

HM:Anthos DLC #4

The last optional download content from the Harvest Moon: The Winds of Anthos season pass was released on the 28th; unless you had an Xbox, then you've had this DLC since the game launched. This DLC brings in new fish, cooking recipes, and plant seeds.

• One new fish is the Nidhogg, which sells for 23,100 G at 2 stars. While this fish sells for more than the high-profit Golden Carp (13,200 G at 2 stars), getting to the ponds where the Nidhogg is located is some work. This fish is found in the ponds that appear in the desert on rainy days (rare), the fishing pond in the Rocky Backroads, and some lava fishing locations in the volcano.
• The DLC unlocks the White Rose and Blue Rose entries in the Flower Encyclopedia, so we can finally clear the new-entry indicator off the encyclopedia icon for those of us who received those flowers from the pet owl before the DLC was formally released.
• There are 5 new flower seeds (Blue Rose, Edelweiss, Goldband Lily, Incan Lily, and White Rose) and 7 new crop seeds (Angel Lantern, Black Potato, Crimson Tomato, Green Pea, Killer Tomato, Soybean, and Titan Potato). New wisps have been added carrying these seeds.
• The new crops and flowers can also mutate into a total of 11 new plant varieties (e.g., Blue Soybean, Snow Lantern, Siegfried, Fire Lily, etc.). The Soybean can become a GIANT sized crop.
• Most new cooking recipes (19) are at Brendon's shop when he's in traveling adventurer mode, while Gunnar has the last recipe in his inventory. Lots of pizza and tofu recipes.

Some of the details can be found on the DLC 4: New Crops, Fish, and Recipes guide page. I'm hoping to fill in the rest of the page this weekend!

Natsume also announced that an upcoming free patch will bring Relaxed Mode to the game, reducing the amount of stamina lost while walking/running and increasing the length of the day. This option will be available for farmers to pick from the game's settings menu (i.e., you don't have to start a new game to experience Relaxed Mode).

New Idle Farming

The creator of pixel adventure game Haiku, the Robot (Steam, Switch) revealed his latest project this week - an idle desktop game called Rusty's Retirement.

His game looks like a relaxing, run-on-its-own farm managed by a little robot. Plant some crops and let the game do its thing, watering and harvesting the produce once the plants mature. The crops can be turned into biofuel for other robots, with profits being used towards farm expansions.

Developer Mr.MorrisGames plans to have it available on Steam sometime in quarter 1 (Jan/Feb/Mar) of 2024. You can wishlist the game from the game's store page:

• Rusty's Retirement | Steam Store

Indie Updates

The crowdfunding campaign for Echoes of the Plum Grove ends in less than 2 days. This historical farming/life sim even popped up in PC Gamer's digital PC Gaming Show the other day, as I overheard Mr.Fogu say, "Oh, a farming game!" while I was busy working in my Fogu HQ office. Granted, I don't expect that he'll want to play the game, even after I gave him the details all about it, because he doesn't play farming game. Even though they're awesome. He's just a difficult non-believer to convert.

Anyhow, you can join in on the support to get a copy of the game for as little as $20 on the Kickstarter website:

• Echoes of the Plum Grove | Kickstarter

Prehistoric farming game Roots of Pacha was released on Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4/5 on November 28, with an XBox version in the works for a release planned for early 2024. Tuesday's release also welcomed the 1.1 update on Steam and home console.

This free content update includes:

• a new wild Auroch bovine that gives milk and fur;
• the ability to sit on seats and regain stamina while sitting;
• the option to break your existing union (i.e., marriage) to pursue another candidate;
• Voda is now a union candidate and has new romance events;
• receive unique gifts from villagers when their friendship is high, such as hats, cooking recipes, furniture, and accessories;
• build traps and process wild-caught creatures into meat instead of having to buy meat from Grob;
• Grob can also process your unwanted farm animals into meat;
• grow herbs and mushrooms in your farm space;
• improvements to the maps/tracks when participating in the Race Day event;
• trigger 13 new cut scenes between the Pachans;
• use new quality levels with fish to increase the quality of a cooked meal that uses fish as an ingredient; and
• bug fixes and performance improvements.

The next planned update to Pacha includes further aging of children, plant and animal evolutions, and other unspecified components.

Pathea released news about their roadmap to releasing the PC gameplay enhancements for My Time at Sandrock into the PlayStation, Xbox, and Switch versions of the game. The developer expects the improvements to start testing at Sony/Microsoft within the next few days, with an inevitable release before Christmas. However, with the Nintendo version, Pathea discovered the additional content had negatively impacted game performance (frame rate, memory usage, etc.). They need to do more fine-tuning before sending the content to Nintendo for review.

Early next year, the additional Christmas content Pathea is releasing to the PC version will also be added to the home console editions.

RedPilzStudio released their November Dev Update for the open-world farming game called The Ranchers. The team has recently updated the graphic style and rebuilt the audio system, adding ambiance to their game, such as wind, footsteps, bird songs, insect chatter, and even the cows' moos based on their growth stage and mood. RPS also revealed that the game will support Steam Deck and Apple OS. The early access release is planned for early 2024.

• The Ranchers | Steam Store

HomeFree Adventure

I missed a Kickstarter farming game campaign that launched at the end of October. HomeFree is an off-grid game where players will forage, grow crops, catch fish, and live technology-free in the wilderness.

The game will be story-based, putting the protagonist in an adventure started by their parents' dream of cohabitating with nature. There will be solar ovens to build, rainwater collection systems to develop, and compost to create. This game aims to show players Earth-friendly sustainable systems that they can learn about now and possibly implement in their real lives.

The crowdfunding campaign has already reached its initial goal but could use more support to reach stretch goals. You can learn more about this game on its Kickstarter page:

• HomeFree - Your off-grid adventure | Kickstarter

Until next time!

- Cher
(Almost done with Christmas shopping!)

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