With 2019 coming to a close, I wanted to take a moment to look back at all of the amazing games I’ve played and reviewed this year. I’d also like to give a special thanks to the developers and publishers that have supplied me with codes and gave me the chance to experience some real indie gems! There have been many awards given this past month, however I just wanted to highlight some wholesome games that I have spent a large amount of time playing.

Let’s start with farming sims because, for me, this category was the hardest one to narrow down to a select few because it is arguably my favorite genre and there were so many great indie games to go through!

Alchemy Story

Created by solo developer Éloïse Laroche, this adorable art style caught my attention immediately from little chicks with bow ties to the happiest cows wearing bells. Alchemy Story is about saving the many villagers that have been cursed by a witch and using all of your skills as an alchemist to turn them from animals into humans again! This game has been on Steam Early Access since August 22nd, 2019 and continues to receive regular updates such as new characters and customization options.

Littlewood

This adorable game with small pixels but huge heart, is all about making friends and having them move into your town. What I find most interesting about the town is how much you can make it your own by changing the elevation of the ground, placing your own paths and ponds, and much more! Created by sole developer Sean Young, this game has been on Steam since June and continues to grow with new features such as mini-games and pets! It has also been confirmed that this game will be coming to the Nintendo Switch.

Staxel

Staxel is a voxel-style building game developed by Plukit and published by Humble Bundle. I played this game on Steam back in April and loved building homes for my villagers brick-by-brick. You can create anything you can imagine with blocks such as chicken coops, tool sheds, flowerbeds, and more! Also, the stores are really adorable to shop in and the workshops make creating things fun!

Garden Paws

What can I say about Garden Paws that hasn’t already been said? I have spent the most amount of hours on this game on Steam that I have ever spent on a farming sim. It has everything from several quests, crafting/building, exploration, taming pets, farm animals, running a shop, fishing, mining, and more!

It’s hard to sum up everything I love about this adorable game and the creators keep adding more things to do with more islands, creatures, dungeons, festivals/events, and items that keep me returning to the world of Florens.

There are many other farming sims on my radar for the future, mainly Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town, Doraemon Story of Seasons, Rune Factory 5, and basically anything I’ve talked about here. There are some games I have yet to finish, or at least play more of, like Re:Legend and Stranded Sails, and games like Stardew Valley that have such large new updates, they might as well be sequels! Stay tuned for my next category for another list of games I’ve played this year.