Indie Farming Game Updates, Doraemon2 Free Demo, A New Ceremony in SoS:AWL, and More BIG Cow Plushies | Posted at 02:48 PM 07 October 2022

Happy Farm'n Friday! As I was slowly waking up this morning, right at that point between deciding to go back to sleep or finally getting around to opening my eyes, I heard Mr.Fogu exclaim, "What did you guys bring in the house?!"

Well, that question woke me up pretty quickly...

You see, the interns like to go outside in their catio after Mr.Fogu feeds them breakfast while I'm still asleep. This morning, Intern Hondo discovered a leaf had made its way into their enclosure. So naturally, he picked it up and brought it back inside, along with a 3-inch slug that also happened to be attached to the leaf. Mr.Fogu had discovered Hondo licking the slug after it escaped off the leaf and was sliming around on the still-under-remodel mess of a floor. That's when he made his eye-opening statement I heard all the way on the other side of the house.

Mr.Fogu placed the slug back outside where it belongs, and Hondo doesn't appear to have any side effects from his slug-licking escapade. Hopefully, that's the last time we see Intern Hondo bring a new mucusy coworker to Fogu HQ to meet the bosses.

Kickstarter Updates

Magical farming game Critter Crops by Skyreach Studio will launch a beta version on Steam on October 23. The free public beta will be available until November 5. If you were a crowdfunding campaign backer or a game streamer, beta access would be available on October 15.

The latest update from Roots of Pacha brings in new elements to the fishing aspect of this prehistoric farming and village-building game. Players will naturally become familiar with each fish they catch, transferring that knowledge to the underwater shadows that appear during the fishing mini-game and increasing the quality of that particular fish. Soda Den has also expanded upon four characters' stories and worked on the art studio function that lets players decorate their in-game pottery.

Square Husky released a new trailer for his afterlife farming action game, Everafter Falls.

This farming game does have a specified bedtime for players to comply with, but instead of simply forcing the player to go to bed like in Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town, the player will be chased around by ghosts! The player can outrun the ghosts to make it back home, but if they're caught, the nanny ghosts tuck the player into bed in a charming way. The penalty for getting caught by sleepytime spirits is spending an extra 3 hours sleeping, but gosh, if that isn't an adorable sight. Also added are more details on how players can exchange shop-awarded points for tickets to unlock prize cabinets scattered around town and how to use an underground mine as a travel shortcut. Square Husky hopes to release Everafter Falls in 2023.

And a reminder that Coral Island launches on Steam Early Access on Tuesday, October 11. Those who helped with the crowdfunding campaign will start to receive their Steam keys on October 8 (Saturday). Stairway Games requests that those with early access copies wait until October 9 to start streaming gameplay. Farmers who didn't participate in the Kickstarter campaign and still want to play the game can purchase the early access game for $24.99. Stairway Games expects their tropical farming game to stay in early access for about a year, but it could be longer depending on how satisfied they are with the finished product. If they have to release a game update, the plan is to try and preserve players' saved data, but there may be instances when the update may clear all progression data. If that happens, Stairway Games intends to preserve, as much as possible, a player's gold, inventory items, mastery skills, inventory, and farm design (exterior and interior) will remain; basically, it's a reminder that the game is still in development. The early access launch won't include controller support, though (drat!). Coral Island's early access launch will support Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese, and Spanish, with plans to support additional languages.

New Wedding in SoS:AWL

This week, Marvelous publicized that a new wedding scene has been added to Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life. In the 2002 version of Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life, players ended their first year of the game with a future marriage promise with their chosen spouse (or with the person who visited their house on their last day of the year to propose marriage). The couple is then unceremoniously married with a toddler at the start of chapter 2.

In the remake of AWL, there's a tranquil gathering at the forest pond between the protagonist and their chosen future spouse. Together, they pledge to spend the rest of their lives together and discuss their future family. This point is where the player can choose the gender of the child who appears in chapter 2 - either a girl or a boy or allow the game to pick for them because either would be a-okay. It's much simpler to have a daughter in the remake, rather than having to talk to Mr. Pots 100 times to unlock that option like in Another Wonderful Life.

Doraemon:SoS2 Demo

A free demo of Doraemon: Story of Seasons - Friends of the Great Kingdom is now available on the Nintendo eShop in Asia; there is still no entry for this game on North American or European eShops. The free trial version is also available on Steam.

Bandai Namco Asia released a new video that explains how Noby and his friends made their way to Illuma, where they meet Lumis and learn of his dream of restoring his dad's farm.

Doraemon 2 is very similar to the first version of the game, but this time the friends live together in the same house while they work equivalent jobs as they did in the first game. Even the world map of Illuma is very similar to Natura in Doraemon:SoS 1. The farm is in the middle, with a seashore, town, mountains, and forest in the same area. Some of the springtime events are also the same - the cork target festival, the spring harvest festival, and the horse race are during spring. Doraemon:SoS 2 does have a new Fishing Festival on Spring 18.

The similarities continue with the characters. There is a little girl who is super-friendly with the animal shop livestock, and the forage-shop owner has a son who doesn't want to be a smithy.

To recruit farm help, talk to a farmhouse resident. After the conversation dialog, another prompt opens with a "Go Together" option. The friend will then follow Noby and help with the field crops. You can tell them to buzz off by talking and choosing the "Split Up" option. The farm help is quite convenient, speeding up field chores and conserving energy. The downside is that the prompt to ask for help opens up every time you talk to Doraemon, Lumis, Sue, and the other farm friends.

One thing that is obviously different in Doraemon:SoS 2 is the inventory system. The backpack is now split into two parts - items and equipment. Tools no longer occupy the same backpack space where crops, bugs, fish, and foraged items are stored. Another new change is that the dialog during events is fully voiced in Japanese, with the written text displayed in the language chosen by the player. The audio will refer to the characters using their Japanese names; Noby is "Nobita," Sue is "Shizuka," and so on. Another improvement is Noby carries around a spotlight necklace that shines on the ground when it's dark outside, making it easier to see where you're going at night.

If you enjoyed the first Doraemon:SoS game, then you'll like this one too; it's basically the same underlying game with some enhancements, plus a new storyline.

The digital version of the first Doraemon: Story of Seasons game is currently sale again for 70% off on the Playstation Store until October 12.

New JP Plushies

Fansclub is releasing more "Big" sized plushie cows that will become prizes at participating arcade/game centers in Japan starting this month. The black-and-white Big Cow looks like a re-release of the original 25th BokuMono Big Cow that came out in October last year, but this one is a smidge smaller at 27 cm long; the Big Cow from a year ago was 29 cm long. Even plushies are affected by shrink-flation, I guess. The brown Big Cow is a larger version of the same one from last September, but the black Big Cow is new to the Fansclub plushie series.

Until next time!

Cher
(Another 85°F weekend? I thought this was supposed to be the cool-weather autumn season...)

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