Masterpost of Farming Simulation Games that aren't HM/SoS/RF

[JustABeautifulGuy]

Luma Island has just came out and it's ridiciously doing so well on Steam for a game with seemingly no prior buzz around it. This one definitely wasn't in my radar but I just saw the gameplay footage and it looks really really gorgeous. The blend of pixel art and 3D assets is done so well and looks so seamless.

A huge emphasis seems to be on the exploration and farming aspect so I'd keep my expectations limited to these features only. There apparently is a social sim system in the game... but it seems to be very barebones and based on the devs' comments in their own subreddit, they are waiting to see how much demand there is for the romance aspect before they decide to develop for it. I personally predict that since the game seems to be hitting big, they're likely going to add more features. Apparently they have a roadmap planned so I think I'm going to wait to see that before biting and getting the game no matter how tempting the visuals look to me right now...

The game seems to be praised a lot so far but every negative review has one common issue with the game: it's way too easy and has no challenge to it. Not sure how I feel about that because I love challenge in my farming games but... I'm still going to keep my mind open for this game.

I don't want to play SoS on PC anyway, personally. In fact, I really miss the 3DS specifically. It was SO nice to hold, much more comfortable than the Switch, even though I put a comfort grip on my Switch if I'm playing handheld. The 3DS was the best console ever to play all cozied up in bed.

I miss playing on my 3DS so much. Switch has an upside that it can run amazing looking HD games in handheld mode but it just never managed to feel like a proper handheld to me. The cozy factor was missing, and even the Switch Lite didn't quite feel right to me; it just feels too heavy and large for it to have that cozy handheld vibes. The Switch successor is rumored to be quite larger than the OG Switch (which totally makes sense since it's going to have huge specs upgrade) but... that bit doesn't excite me at all. I like the hybrid direction Nintendo is going for and I do think Switch's handheld mode is tolerable but I just wish they focused more on the console being pocketable bit as well.

[Velvet]

Thank you, guys (gals), for still posting here, it's so nice to read these mini-reviews from this community

Is Luma Island actually a full game, are there no major updates on the way? Judging by screenshots it should run on my PC, but judging by its system requirements my GPU isn't good enough. But I've often been able to run the not-good-enough tier games without issues anyway. Besides, surely it doesn't need a good GPU for such graphics. That said, BG3 has pulled off the trick of requiring a bleeding-edge PC for almost nothing just splendidly. I hope their programmers were all fired for such a botched job, lol

I've heard a lot about Fields of Mistria, too, but I'm waiting for it to go out of beta. I know that most people play games in beta, but these days even fully released games are so unfinished, I became jaded about playing them until or even after full release. Like with Coral Island, that was just crazy. Maybe someone can help me and say if it's finally fully finished by now? The last time I checked even the main story wasn't finished. And there were always some major updates on the way that made me feel that playing it now would be like robbing myself of not yet released content. Eventually I just decided: ok, I'll check back in 5 or so years, surely it'll be completed by then

[Kikki]

So Autonomica (formerly known as Farm Folks, long ago Kickstarted by a different group and abandoned and reclaimed by another group who after a few years of work is now bringing their renewed project back to Kickstarter...they did not receive any of the money the original group got and the game has been vastly expanded and changed) is now in Kickstarter. It looks like a huge amount of fun, with vast customization of building and gardening (and possibly terrain manipulation, I'm not sure about that part.)

I think this was mentioned, but Monster Patch (Sean Young's new game...he's the creator of Littlewood, which this game is a lot like though it is more about monster-taming.) is also on Kickstarter now. It received full funding in 16 minutes and it still has 8 days to go.

And I just noticed a game called Astrobotanica, that has gone live recently on Kickstarter as well. Looks pretty cool.

Haven't decided if I want to back any of them. For me the reason to back is to get perks or to get the game early, and I don't like getting games early because that means getting them before they are finished. I only like playing finished games. (I don't even like games where you can tell the division between early access and full release content...the early access feels like core content and the rest feels like slapped on DLC. YUCK.) But they all look like games I'd like.

Oh and, just a head's up. Echoes of the Plum Grove is on 40% off, right now. The game was already considered complete, but it received another update a few days ago. Just some extra content (like jewelry making and the ability to choose who other characters marry), not core stuff. It's really already a complete game.

Voltaire the Vegan Vampire is 55% off.

[Bluie]

Welp, Puff Pals is dead. I honestly knew for the first moment I looked at the kickstarter that it was dead on arrival. A plush company making a video game? :/

They are DROWNING in lawsuits. The response on their most recent update says it all, but here's also a good video explaining the mess:



Seriously though 2.5 million dollars!? What a joke.

[Kikki]

Firstly: Too bad, because it was REALLY cute.

But restly:

Half of the comments on that Kickstarter post were all by "Irene", who was intensely annoying, to me. I wish she'd just have shut up. "She" was so annoying in the posts that I've gotten to have a worse opinion of her than of this David guy. (The posts made me think that "Irene" was someone else, sniping at the Fluffnest people under cover of a fake name. I don't know anyone involved, but my best guess would be this Ryono guy that Irene kept mentioning by name, even including his job description, each time she listed the people that Fluffnest needed to pay. That or Irene was involved in some other way than just being an angry backer, because who gets THAT MAD that they had $30 ripped off of them two or three years ago? I don't know what's going on, but I find this Irene person as suspicious as this defunct dev-and-plushie-making pair that is Fluffnest.)

Though people need to step back and remember that they signed up for this. You back on Kickstarter, you are from the beginning are warned that not all projects come to fruition and that even if they don't, YOU WON'T GET YOUR MONEY BACK.

I never backed it, because I DO know that, and I don't trust Kickstarter projects to be completed. Even if they are, I don't pay my money for something that'll take 1-5 years to get to me.

It sounds like Fluffnest was never actually making the game; they just had an idea, and were hiring development groups to make it for them. So if just the Fluffnest people are left, well...I don't think they have any dev abilities, do they? So yeah, since they won't be able to hire anyone (since they're known not to pay) and they're not actually devs themselves...

I'm kind of wondering. Plushies are generally made by companies in China. What did the actual Fluffnest people DO? Did they come up with the designs of the plushies? Did they make the initial artist concept for the game?

Well, I'm no insider. I don't personally know a single person involved with this.

[Bluie]

I genuinely feel for the people who paid for the top tiers, because that's hundreds of dollars. But yes, it is a risk you take with Kickstarters, which is why I don't fund any unless I 100% know I can trust them to deliver. I've funded a total of 11; nine of which are video games while the other two are a sticker book and a tabletop game. 7 of them I've gotten while three are still being worked on (2 games and the tabletop) and one never delivered. One of them took ridiculously long to be delivered, to the point that I redeemed it and never played it as I had lost all my enthusiasm. The other ones are fine though, especially Chicory and Cattails which are fantastic games I'm happy to be in the credits of. Puff Pals did not give me any semblance of trust from the creators as it gave me the same vibes as Re:Legend, the one Kickstarter that burned me. I'm at the point that if I haven't consumed the creator's other ESTABLISHED medias, I won't give a thin dime. I only have so much trust and when I saw a plush company pitching a game and getting MILLIONS for it? I knew it was trouble.

On the plush manufacturing thing; usually how it goes is you design the thing, send the design, get a proof, approve of the proof, and then order massive quantities. It varies from designs and quantity, but usually a basic order of mass produced plushies is going to cost you at least 1,000 USD. You'll turn a profit if you have the plushies priced properly, and usually companies will have preorders using the proof to secure the funds. Take Makeship, for example, where they wont make the plush unless there's enough preorders secured. I'm not sure how Fluffnest « Snuggly Bunny » up so badly and I'm not in the mood to find out, but I suspect a 40+ min video in the future exposing and explaining everything before long.

[Bluie]

Huh, well, I was not expecting a farming game to come out of NIS of all companies.



They're using the engine/style of their horror series; Yomawari, and judging from the end of the trailer, it seems like it's still in the same vein somewhat. Consider me tentatively interested.

[Kikki]

It's pretty cute. Got it confused for just a second with a Vanillaware game. I would so love to see a farming or other life sim game done by Vanillware because their colours are just so, SO good.

I can't help but keep an eye out for farming sims, especially when done by experienced dev teams who don't usually dabble in farming. Don't know how this will turn out! Wonder if it has much of a story...it looks like it definitely has one. Also wonder if they plan to do a full localization. Switch 2 seems to have back-pedalled on the whole no-region-lock thing we had going on with Switch 1, so a localization feels less guaranteed than it once would have.

I'm curious, anyway.