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Apr 1, 2021
Hokko Life is an Animal Crossing inspired game featuring farming and unseen customization options.
For the ones who are not so familiar with Hokko Life yet – this indie title is an Animal Crossing inspired game that brings tons of new stuff to the table. The village simulator features a wide variety of unique characters, in-depth farming and so far unseen customization tools where you can create your very own village and even your own furniture designs from the ground up – Lego Style!
Robert, founder and main developer behind the game recently teamed up with Team 17 to bring his full vision for the game to life and today he revealed some more news about Hokko Life.
To make the game feel more alive and interactions with villagers even cuter, new talking animations have been added to the game and they really make for an adorable scene, take a look below at the short snippet.
Hokko Life Looks so Cozy
Hokko Life caught my attention from the day Robert had revealed this adorable title. Village simulation games are kind of my passion and this one is right up my alley.
The lighting in this game creates such wonderful atmosphere as seen in the latest trailer. Another new screenshot from the game showcasing what appears to be a Cafe in the town shows exactly how adorable the game looks with the upgraded visuals.
Hokko Life is Animal Crossing Inspired but goes far beyond
While Hokko Life shares similarities with Animal Crossing, just like Stardew Valley to Harvest Moon, Robert has made sure the game goes beyond just being an Animal Crossing like game.
There are many features that make this indie title stand out, you can design your very own furniture – lego style and then share them with the community, this level of customization will make every town and home feel more unique. If you haven’t seen the customization tool in action I recommend you take a peak right here.
Hokko Life Release Date
Robert and Team 17 recently revealed that Hokko Life will be coming to Steam Early Access this summer along with a new gameplay trailer!
- Mar 26, 2021
Hokko Life a cozy life simulation game, is finally coming to Early Access.
For anyone who is not familiar with Hokko Life yet, it is an Animal Crossing inspired indie game that aims to capture the cuteness of the beloved village simulator but it also adds a whole lot of new fun features such as an in-depth customization tool to create your very own furniture designs from scratch.
The game takes a lot of inspiration from Animal Crossing but also includes the charm and farming elements from games like Stardew Valley. Hokko Life is not just a copy of either of those games as it re-invents many of the beloved features and adds tons of new stuff to explore at the same time.
Hokko Life Cozy Indeed
Hokko Life of course features seasons as well as day and night cycles. Robert recently showed of how the game changes throughout the day by demonstrating the lighting system in the game. Take a look below how much atmosphere is created in this the cozy village by simply changing the the lighting. ( tap to enlarge the photo )
Today Robert, the developer behind the game, announced that Hokko Life is finally coming to Early Access. This will allow anyone who wishes to purchase an early and often cheaper version of the game to indulge in a brand new village simulation game.
Hokko Life has been in development for some time and I have been following the process over the years. The game has shaped into one of the most exciting indie releases of this year with an adorable customizable village, tons of unique and cute villagers and plenty of things to do.
Hokko Life Early Access Release
Hokko Life will come to Early Access on Steam Summer 2021, so only a few short months to wait. You can already wishlist the game here.
Team 17 recently announced that they would be publishing Hokko Life which opens the doors to a Nintendo Switch release as well, lets keep our fingers crossed!
In addition, a short new trailer was released to celebrate the Early Access news.
- Sep 19, 2020
We recently posted an article about Hokko Life’s devlog 3 from July. In case you missed it, you can read all about it here. It seems the solo developer behind the adorable life simulation game is on the ball. This is due to despite being a solo game developer, he still frequently posts devlogs and actively answers questions on Discord.
But even more impressive is the amount of new features and exciting updates he shares in each devlog, with the August one being no exception. With updates and features such as gardening and expressions in the 4th Steam Hokko Life devlog, we just had to share the devlog’s content. But before we dive into the game’s 4th devlog, here’s some background on the game and a synopsis of what we know so far!
About Hokko Life
Hokko Life is described as a ‘cosy, creativity filled community sim game’. The game is being developed by Robert Tatnell who runs his own indie game dev company, Wonderscope. Initially, Wonderscope intended to both develop and publish Hokko Life. However, this is an understandably big feat for one person.
Therefore in April 2020, Wonderscope revealed that they would ‘team’ up (sorry not sorry) with Team 17, who will now publish Hokko Life. Team 17 are notorious for publishing highly regarded games such as My Time at Portia, Overcooked, and Yooka-Laylee. Initially, Hokko Life was expected to release on Steam later in 2020; The impact of COVID-19, however, could (like many games), delay this. The release date for the game on Steam is currently TBA. The price of the game is also not yet known.
Hokko Life begins with your player stepping off of a train. Having taken over your very own (albeit a little dusty and old) workshop, you are free to craft and create to your heart’s content.
The quiet village which you now call home needs your design expertise. Help create an endearing town for its inhabitants. Armed with paint and tools, you can design, build and decorate new homes for your new furry friends.
Players can craft materials and combine them as they wish. Combining them creates amazing new furniture and items for the town. By collecting flowers and mixing paints, you can then design wallpapers, flooring and even clothing.
With an abundance of choice, you can design items from fetching floral wallpaper to interesting urban-industrial furniture. Whatever your taste, with a workshop at hand, you have complete freedom whilst designing the town.
Hokko Life Devlog 4 – What’s New?
Expressions
First on the list of developments in Hokko Life is the introduction of facial expressions. Robert updated the avatar’s head shader to make this happen. With this new Avatar head mesh the team behind Hokko Life set up the texturing in a way that meant details on the face would be handled with different textures. This means that Robert can swap out individual facial features, such as a nose or a mouth, and provide different expressions. Robert also spent this month editing the head shader especially for this as well as adding three new emotions to Hokko Life, which include happy, straining, and winking.
Energy
Robert had been contemplating for a while whether to add a stamina-like system to the game. He decided to trial a first implementation of one this month in order to see if a stamina system suited Hokko Life. He gave a player a finite amount of energy that depletes when doing tasks such as chopping down trees.
When your energy is depleted, your player needs to rest to recharge. Taking a break only replenishes a small amount of energy, so you’ll need to eat food or take a longer rest if you want to do more work. However, your energy bar will never be completely empty and therefore won’t prevent you from working altogether. Robert wanted a nice balance: to reward players for preparing adequately before heading out to gather resources, but to not penalize them in the event that they do run out of energy.
Bridges
The next addition brought to Hokko Life by Robert is a bridge design blueprint. This gives players the ability to design their very own bridges and then place them out in the world.
Farming
Farming was one of the priorities for Robert this mont. He intended to expand a bit upon the simple pre-existing base.
He also decided to add fertilizer to the game;. Players craft fertlizer using the various resources found in the world. If you put fertilizer on tilled soil, it improves the likelihood of growing high quality crops. High quality crops can be sold for money and may occasionally be requested by characters. The fertilizer will only work on a patch of soil for a certain period of time and anything planted there during that timeframe has a better chance of being high quality crops.
Robert also added templates for two new characters. One of them is the farmer character who will induct you on farming and provide you with crafting recipes for your first pieces of equipment. When you’re more adept at farming, the farmer sells a variety of seeds, as well as some farming crafting recipes. The seconf character provides your player with farming challenges. The challenges are essentially requests but with deadlines.
Sprinklers
And talking about making your farming life easier brings us onto the next update. Sprinklers. Robert added two types of sprinklers to Hokko Life. The first sprinkler waters in a ring, whilst the second waters in a line. You can own both of the sprinklers by purchasing the sprinkler crafting recipe from the farmer. The sprinklers can then can crafted with just a handful of resources and will hands down make your farming life a whole lot easier.
Gardening
Intended to tie in with farming, Robert recently added gardening to the game. With this new feature, players can grow plants and flowers in the world from seeds. Whilst plants and flowers did exist previously, they would sprout in random locations. Additionally, players couldn’t really move them. As a result of the recent gardening update, players can now dig holes and plant trees and flowers as seeds. They are more low maintenance than crops too. Seeds don’t need water and grow nicely on their own. Additionally, plants and trees are movable. (even whilst still growing). The only exception is big trees, which need to be chopped down if you want rid of them.
As well as allowing players to be more creative and have more control over their town, flowers serve another purpose besides looking pretty: They can also be used in some crafting recipes.
UI Stuff
Largely because of the new farmer character providing players with an abundance of seeds and other goods, Robert decided to make a system in the UI where players can see detailed information about items. This new feature is more helpful than you might think. One example is that players need to know how long a seed takes to grow. A second example is that players need to know the required resources to craft a recipe.
Piece Packs
And the final new addition to Hokko Life is Piece Packs.
Once you are further into the game you will unlock more pieces. Pieces are used to design items with. In August, Robert implemented the necessary things to make this work. This brings us on to his introduction of “Piece Packs”. Piece packs are essentially collections of pieces to use when designing. Piece Packs are unlocked as a bundle for a set price.
As Piece Packs are purchased items, Robert updated the Design Tool so the packs show as groups. He also added filter buttons. which allow the player to show or hide different packs based on the materials needed.
- Sep 18, 2020
Hokko Life is described as a ‘cosy, creativity filled community sim game’. The game is being developed by Robert Tatnell who runs his own indie game dev company, Wonderscope. Initially, Wonderscope intended to both develop and publish Hokko Life. However, this is an understandably big feat for one person. Therefore in April 2020, Wonderscope revealed that they would ‘team’ up (sorry not sorry) with Team 17, who will now publish Hokko Life. Team 17 are notorious for publishing highly regarded games such as My Time at Portia, Overcooked, and Yooka-Laylee. Initially, Hokko Life was expected to release on Steam later in 2020; The impact of COVID-19, however, could (like many games), delay this. The release date for the game on Steam is currently TBA. The price of the game is also not yet known.
Hokko Life begins with you stepping off of a train. Now the proud owner of a kinda dusty old workshop, you are free to craft and create to your heart’s content. The quiet village you’ve moved to, needs your help to create an endearing town for its residents. Armed with plenty of paint and tools, design, build and decorate new homes for your neighbours.
Players can craft materials and combine them as they wish. Combining them creates amazing new furniture and items for the town. By collecting flowers and mixing paints, you can then design wallpapers, flooring and even clothing. With an abundance of choice, you can design items from fetching floral wallpaper to interesting urban-industrial furniture. Whatever your taste, with a workshop at hand, you have complete freedom whilst designing the town.
July Hokko Life Update – Gone Fishin’ 🐠
The first game element to be discussed in the July Hokko Life update is fishing. It’s already been announced that fishing will be a feature for players to look forward to. For example, the game’s Steam page informs us that the fish have unique habits. The advice therefore given is to switch up your approach, and to anticipate each catch presenting unique challenges when reeled in.
The game’s fishing feature, however, has since been switched up. And we’re ‘searious’ when we say it’s possibly one of the best updates yet. We’re not even ‘squidding’!
It’s ‘Ofishal’, In Hokko Life You Get An ‘Oppor-tuna-ty’ To Fish. But There’s A Catch: Actually Catching Fish… 🐟🎮
The majority of Wonderscope’s work this month has been dedicated to working on and improving the fishing gameplay. Robert from Wonderscope has kindly decided to walk people through how fishing works in Hokko Life to show how far the game has come!
After re-starting the inventory, Robert was able to add bait to the game! Players can attach the bait to an equipped fishing rod. Having bait on your fishing rod will alter your chances of reeling in certain fish. Players can craft bait using different resources found in the game: but only once you’ve unlocked the crafting recipes.
If you right click on a certain type of bait in your backpack, you will then be prompted by a message. The message will give you the option of attaching the bait to your fishing rod:
Cast your line so that your bait and hook are in the water. It’s then just a matter of waiting for a fish to spot them. Resist the urge to try to reel in the fish as soon as it nibbles. The fish could take quite a few nibbles at the bait before being hooked, so patience is key. You’ll know when the fish has taken the last bite as the action UI will pop up. When this occurs, you have a short amount of time to press ‘Interact’ to hook the fish before it gets away.
Come On Guys You’re Just ‘Krilling’ It Now! 💀💫
But because nothing in life is easy right? Wanting to make Hokko Life that bit more challenging, Wonderscope have added another step which players must complete before that fishy is theirs. That next step, or challenge is the fishing mini game. The aim of the game is to keep the fish in the ring until it reaches the goal line. Naturally, the fish have minds of their own and the pests will try and swim away. This means you’ll need to position your rod left and right, and press ‘interact’ to reel a fish back into the ring.
If the fiendish fish remains outside of the ring for too long, it’ll get away and you’ll fail the mini game… 😒
On the other hand, there’s a chance that a chest could emerge in the mini game. If you manage to guide the frustrating fishy through this chest, it’ll pop open! And voila! You’ll get your fish and a random reward!
Robert said that he recently tried out a “diorama” look for the fishing mini game. He decided upon building a little scene to make the mini game look more appealing and generally aesthetic. The dev confessed to the mini game originally resembling a boring rectangle and likes the cuter direction he has taken with the fishing aspect. Robert also excitedly added that depending on the location you fish in, the diorama will change in accordance with it!
Oh For Cod’s Hake! I’m Not Shore I Wanna Buy The Game Now! I’m Gonna Have To Mullet Over! 😂🎣
Fishing challenges were also added to the game more recently. These challenges will unlock for players after they’ve been fishing for a while. Furthermore, Hokko Life will offer a weekly challenge where players can get bonus rewards.
These challenges are generated once an (in-game) week and necessitate players to catch a specified amount of fish within a certain time. These can either be specific fish, or any type of fish. The time limit varies and is based on the rarity of the fish, as well as if there are any nearby. But don’t worry, if you fail you can always go back and retry! Also, things can occur behind the scenes too, making sure that you have a chance of winning the challenge. I smell something fishy there. 🤔
Robert wanted more variation in the challenges, but explained that setting them up and getting them to work took considerably longer than expected, so he decided to settle with just one type for now. On the plus side, he excitingly added that the system is now there for challenge types to be added in the future.
Whilst the fishing update was the most prominent part of July’s Hokko Life devlog, other updates were also covered. These include:
Brief Updates On Avatars (Because Apparently They Looked Ugly). RUDE. ☹️😂
- Spending more time working on the animation system
- Improving how equipping and un-equipping tools works behind the scenes, among other things.
- Attempting to make changes so that the system is less buggy
- Simultaneously aiming to improve the game’s overall appearance whilst de-bugging
- Changing simple things like adding an acceleration to the player to make the transition from standing to running look nicer.
- Adding equip animation variations to fit the different ways the player can hold an item.
- Working on some of the avatars animations. Mostly focusing on improving their weighting and timing.
This character thinks that the deletion of avatars is quite rude! Finally, Hokko Life Devlog #3 contained some brief updates on improvements to other avatar assets and features. These include face and head shapes, tweaks to hair styles, and deleting ‘ugly’ old clothing items and old avatar assets. Robert said deleting the old ugly stuff felt good, so we’ll take his word for it. But seriously though, please give the basic avatar assets some clothes and features before showing them to us. Especially when they seem to be crazily wielding weapons of some kind… #NightmareFuel 😱😂
This character definitely thinks that the deletion of avatars is quite rude! Make sure to stay tuned for our coverage of Hokko Life Devlog #4! The game is really shaping up, with some new features and updates you won’t want to miss! 😊
Click here to check out an exclusive interview with the game’s solo developer.
For more info on the game be sure to take a peek at this article
You can also visit the game’s website here.
- Jun 5, 2020
Hokko Life is an Animal Crossing inspired indie game that aims to capture the cuteness of the beloved village simulator and even adding a whole new level of customizations.
Hokko Life is desribed as a ‘cosy, creativity filled community sim game’. The game is being developed by Robert Tatnell who runs his own indie game dev company, Wonderscope.
Hokko Life is the cutest town you’ll never want to leave
Hokko Life begins with your player stepping off of a train. Having taken over your very own (albeit a little dusty and old) workshop, you are free to craft and create to your heart’s content.
The quiet village which you now call home needs your design expertise. Help create an endearing town for its inhabitants. Armed with paint and tools, you can design, build and decorate new homes for your new furry friends.
Hokko Life customizations
Robert has long talked about the level of customizations you can come to expect from Hokko Life. Not only can you change patterns and colors of your favorite furnitures but you will even be able to create some new designs from scratch.
This may sound complicated but in a recent tweet from Robert we got a first look at how to build your own designs. It is as easy as dragging and dropping pieces together to bring your creative vision to live!
Trade your creations in Hokko Life
Easy creative tools like this are very rare in video games and allow for players to really expand their creativity. It will be exciting to see all the different designs players come up as the game also features a market where you can share or even sell your creations to other players!
Hokko Life Mining
Hokko Life also just got mining and other new additions, take a peak at the latest here.
- May 17, 2020
Hokko Life is desribed as a ‘cosy, creativity filled community sim game’. The game is being developed by Robert Tatnell who runs his own indie game dev company, Wonderscope. Initially Wonderscope intended to both develop and publish Hokko Life. However, this is an understandably big feat for one person. Therefore in April 2020, it was revealed that Wonderscope had ‘teamed’ up with Team 17, who will now publish the game. Team 17 are notorious for publishing games such as My Time at Portia, Overcooked, and Yooka-Laylee. Hokko Life will hopefully release for PC via Steam at some point this year. The price of the game is not yet known.
About The Game:
Hokko Life begins with your player stepping off of a train. Having taken over your very own (albeit a little dusty and old) workshop, you are free to craft and create to your heart’s content.
The quiet village which you now call home needs your design expertise. Help create an endearing town for its inhabitants. Armed with paint and tools, you can design, build and decorate new homes for your new furry friends.
Players can craft materials and combine them how they wish. This allows you to create a variety of cool new furniture and items for the town. By collecting flowers and mixing paints, you can use them to design wallpapers, flooring and even clothing!
Given plenty of design choices, you could design a bright flowery wallpaper set, or instead create an urban-industrial furniture collection. Whatever your taste, with a workshop at hand, you have complete freedom in designing a beautiful town for the townsfolk.
Features:
- Chop, mine and dig for resources by venturing out to the forest or the abandoned mine. After bringing those resources back to town, where you can craft them into materials to use in your designs.
- Gather materials, head into your workshop and put your own spin on each item you make. The design table lets you build your own furniture. Here you can combine various shapes and materials using a simple yet powerful editor.
- Design a variety of wallpaper, flooring and T-Shirts for you and the villagers to wear. Feel like a famous fashion designer and get everyone in town wearing your bespoke designs.
- Enlist the help of the local builder in order to begin expanding the town. You get complete freedom over where buildings are located and then need to ensure they are ready for new villagers to move to town.
- Customize both the interiors and exteriors of any home. Release your inner interior designer and pick designs and place furniture to create a home your new friends will adore.
- Turn any plot of land into a place where plants and vegetables will grow. When your produce is ready, you’ll be able to sell it.
- Enjoy quiet moments at the various fishing spots located in Hokko and expand your fishing collection. The fish have unique habits, and so players will need to vary their approaches. Similarly, each catch provides it’s own challenge when you reel them in.
- Hokko is home to a wide variety of different insects. These insects can be caught and added to your collection. Be sure to keep a eye out, as some may be hiding in a bush.
So,
What’s new pussycat? Woah, woah. What’s new pussycat? Woah, oh, woah(ahem).About The Latest Devlog:
The latest Devlog from the creator of Hokko Life appeared on Steam on May 6th BST. In it, featured some exciting little updates about the game’s progress.
Now working with Team 17, Wonderscope have stated that ‘epic updates to Hokko Life’ have apparently already been made! The ones mentioned in the Devlog include:
Art Updates:
- More variety in the shape, pattern and color of mine rocks
- The fish receive makeovers. After contemplating how he’d like them to look, Robert settled ‘on a clean and stylized look’. Additionally, there are now a wider variety of fish in the game.
- Tidier textures for buildings. Using the workshop building, one of the older elements of the game, Robert gave it a newer style and cleaned up its texture.
- Improved ground textures. One of the biggest improvements is the appearance of the game’s grass. The grass is now 3D, has more depth, and in the words of Robert ‘brings the quality level up a notch’.
Other Changes & Additions:
Edit Designs Anywhere:
In April, Robert started work on allowing players to edit the design of objects in the world, by simply interacting with them. Until that point, players had to return all the way to their workshop in order to edit a design. They would also need that object in their backpack to do this. (Sound familiar to Animal Crossing: New Horizons crafting and customization peeves? 😂). Now, however, if players spot something that they want to edit, they can do so from anywhere in the world.
Lessening Hassle & Frustrating Things and Making Hokko Life More Immediate & Fun To Play:
Robert says in the Devlog that he will continue to think of ways to make the game more convenient and fun to play. He wishes to remove anything that might be a hassle to players in order to improve their gaming exprience. (Take notes, Nintendo 😂).
Another small change could possibly be the ability to evolve your players avatar. The information about this is in a recent Hokko Life Patreon post from May 15th. However the post is only accessible to the game’s Patreon supporters (which is totally fair btw!). If you are a supporter of the game on Patreon though, and know what this post is about, feel free to enlighten us! We’re curious!
You can check out an exclusive interview with the game’s solo developer, Robert Tatnell here.
And to get a more in-depth insight into the game, you should check out this article here.
You can visit the game’s website for info here and visit their Steam page and read their Devlogs here. Additionally, you can follow them on Twitter, and/or join their Discord server here.
- Apr 26, 2020
The developer of Hokko Life, Robert Tatnell, has been answering many great questions on Discord.
For those that have only been following Hokko Life semi-closely, the developer has been answering a lot of in-depth questions about his game and the development process. The answers to these questions give us a closer look at what exactly is going on behind the scenes of the creation of this super adorable upcoming life sim game.
FAQ’s about the game
As previously mentioned, many great questions have been rolling in about the game, and Robert has been kind enough to answer as many pertinent questions as possible. Like how will customizations work? Will there be dating? For the full list of FAQ’s, it’s as easy as joining the conversation on Discord!
On how time works.
“Well, that’s a very big question…! But in Hokko Life, time progresses at it’s own pace and isn’t tied to the real time. You can sleep to advance time to the next day, for example.
On relationships.
“The game features a relationship system that tracks how you interact with villagers and is used to unlock things like new dialog and whether or not characters can move to your town. This system can be expanded at a later date. As such there’s currently no dating gameplay between the human player character and the animal villagers.”
On Stamina Bar.
“No plans for an energy/stamina bar at the moment. Have considered this sort of thing but I don’t want to put awkward limitations on the player; there could be something encouraging you to sleep at night, but I don’t want to knock the player out and force them onto the next day (or similar)”
On playing as an animal.
“Oooh! This is one I get asked a lot! I didn’t realise it was such a popular request! For initial release there’s no plan for you to be able to play as an animal; it would involve a lot of work that I don’t have the bandwidth for. Given how popular it is though, it would be wonderful to add something like this at a later date; but I cannot promise anything!”
More info.
In the FAQ’s page, there is also mention that the game will not feature multiplayer functionality, but you can share the things you create in the game. The current release for Early Access on Steam is set for late 2020. There is no set price, but the game will not be free to play.
As it stands, Hokko Life is only releasing on PC, but will come to consoles depending on how everything goes. This is a solo-dev project with a single outside collaborator for music.
For more information on the game, you can follow the progress of development on Twitter. For a closer look at the developer, check out my interview with Robert from October of last year.
For more cute life-sim games, check out my coverage of the upcoming indie based on Japanese rural life.
- Apr 10, 2020
Hokko Life and Team17 are partnering up to bring the most refined version of Hokko Life to PC this year.
Robert is the sole developer behind Hokko Life an indie life and village simulation game that is heavily inspired by the cuteness of Animal Crossing but shines complelty on its own.
Hokko Life allows players to take full control of their village with near unlimited customization options. Freely place any villager home in your town, decorate it with custom patterns and even create new furniture from the ground up – Lego style!
Partnering with Team17 will allow Robert to pour more time into making Hokko Life as great as can be. Stardew Valley fans might have seen a similar move when ConcernedApe teamed up with Chucklefish to bring Stardew Valley to more platforms.
Hokko Life Could Possibly See a Nintendo Switch Release
As of now Hokko Life is only planned to release on Steam with an Early Access release planned sometime early this year. However, partnering with Team17 could possibly allow Robert to bring the game to more platforms if it proves to be a viable option.
Team17 is known for games such as the beloved Overcooked series, Worms and the latest co-op survival game The Survivalists.
Hokko Life is expected to launch in Early Access for PC and Mac sometime this year.
More Hokko Life News
For everything Hokko Life, check out the latest reveal trailer as well as my interview with Robert on some insight information on the upcoming village simulator!
