Aug 17, 2019News
Games that defy genre are increasing. Eastshade belongs to the wave of games that make you question their classification. Published earlier this year, Eastshade is amazingly beautiful. And if it must be placed in a genre, then it’s probably a walking simulator.
You play as a wandering artist. Explore the world extensively, and even stop to paint pictures of anything that catches your eye. You can paint for yourself, and you can even take commissions and paint what is requested of you. (Though the painting mechanic is more like taking pictures.) Eastshade feels like it’s much more than just a walking simulator.
Eastshade is full of NPCs who are full of their own interests. They can give you quests. They even have branching dialogue chains, so what they say is dependent on how you speak to them. What’s more is that the game remembers your previous actions. Characters you meet will respond to you based on the actions you have been taking all along. Quests will be available depending on what you have unlocked, so the potential for more than one play through the game is high.
Your actions will impact the world around you in Eastshade. You gather materials and help people in need. You can even create solutions that will allow you to explore the world more fully. Some areas of the world are unexplored because of natural impasses, but you will be able to find ways to surmount them. (And boldly go where no one has gone before!)
Eastshade is currently available on Steam, and while no firm plans have been announced, the developers are still considering other platforms. We hope Eastshade will spread to as many platforms as possible so that it can reach the biggest audience! You can also visit the developer’s official site.
If you can’t play Eastshade on Steam, why not try a game like Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles or My Time at Portia? They’re all quite different from each other, but all allow you to explore a beautiful world at your own pace. Yonder and Portia are also available on Steam as well as almost all current-gen consoles.
Aug 16, 2019News
Don’t Starve is an adventure and simulation game about gathering resources and surviving in a strange land with many dangers. It’s developed by Klei Entertainment, an indie studio that continues to add content and regular updates to their standalone multiplayer expansion Don’t Starve Together. Return of Them is a free Don’t Starve Together expansion with the most recent update being Turn of Tides.
Now you can play the expansion with the newest update since August 15th, 2019 on Steam here. Unfortunately the update will be delayed for another 3-4 weeks for console players. Furthermore, if you log into your PC game within the next 2 weeks, you’ll receive the “Roseate Sail” so you can deck out your new boat. Oh yes, there are boats now in Don’t Starve Together! Don’t worry, the item will also be offered to console gamers upon release. See below for information on Turn of Tides and the newest accompanying trailer.
Something ancient stirs in the night sky, and the world below will never be the same. A strange new island teeming with life has appeared, and with it, a whole new slew of challenges for our Survivors to face. Keep a wary eye out. They’re almost here.
For more on the Turn of Tides patches, you can check out their Steam update here. If you like Klei Entertaiment’s style, check out our article on their newly released game here: Oxygen Not Included Now Available For Digging.
Aug 16, 2019News
The developers of Planet Zoo, Frontier Developments, have just announced details about their new Career Mode which includes a main storyline and several characters with unique personalities. If you haven’t read our last article regarding Zookeepers from their last Developer Journal, you can do so here. We here at myPotatoGames are blown-away by the amount of details and realism the creators are putting into the game which is releasing on PC November 5th, 2019. Frontier Developments assure us that the new Career Mode will be different than what you might be used to if you played their Planet Coaster game. See below for the details on the new mode and the first two new main characters from the latest Dev Post.
In Planet Zoo’s Career Mode, you will go on a trip around the world with new characters, exciting objectives, and lots of decisions that can impact the success of your zoos. There’s a bunch of unique Scenarios that follow along a beautiful and adventurous story, written by Graham Goring – and as it’s part of the Planet universe, there will be loads of light-hearted humour and heart-warming moments!
Each Scenario has its own unique challenges, determined by the continent you’re in, the biome you’re utilizing, the weather, the temperature, and of course animal availability. There will be goals for you to achieve (Bronze, Silver, and Gold), which contain gameplay objectives that vary in difficulty depending on how far you’ve progressed through the story – there’s a lot of unique objectives to get stuck in too! Each Scenario will open up with an introduction to your new surroundings by a character; in the first part of the story, you will mainly be interacting with Bernard “Bernie” Goodwin and Nancy Jones.
Bernard is the owner of several zoos and has made it his life’s work to use them to drive positive change, saving endangered species and increasing animal welfare around the world. He is a warm and humorous character (he loves dad jokes!) who cares deeply for all people and animals alike. He sees the good in almost everyone he meets and wants to inspire others to follow in his path. Despite his age, he has the energy and zest for life of a man twenty years his junior!
Nancy has worked with Bernie for over thirty years and is a no-nonsense woman with a dry sense of humour. Nancy’s first job as a Zookeeper was actually at one of Bernie’s zoos! She’s gotten to where she is through hard work, common sense and passion for her job; a talent Bernard quickly recognized, leading him to promote her to Head Zookeeper – meaning she now leads the teams and expects them to have the same high standards as she does!
Planet Zoo has also recently been nominated for Best Simulation Game at the Gamescom Awards 2019! You can read all about Gamescom and how to watch the live-streams this coming Monday, August 19th, 2019. Frontier Developments say they will be demonstrating their new Career Mode, Gamescom Gameplay Demo, on Tuesday, August 20th, 2019 at 7PM BST on YouTube. Sandbox Mode is always fun and the best way to get super creative but we can’t wait to find out what kind of goals there will be for our zoos!
Aug 16, 2019News
We’ve been following Greg Lobanov’s work on this game, formerly known as Drawdog as the working title, and now we have the full title and the whole picture (pun intended)! Greg Lobanov is an indie game designer based in Vancouver, Canada, and has designed, programmed, and written many indie games. For example: Wandersong, Coin Crypt, Phantasmaburbia, and more. Chicory: A Colorful Tale launched on Kickstarter just yesterday and before we even got the chance to write this article, it surpassed its goal! With 29 more days to go, you can still make a pledge on the Kickstarter campaign here and get in on those rewards/backerkits!
Chicory: A Colorful Tale is an adventure game about a dog wielding a magic paintbrush! Use the power of art to explore, solve puzzles, help your animal friends and restore color to the world. The Brush is a one-of-a-kind artifact that can color the world. Naturally, it needs a wielder, a master artist responsible for all colors and for passing the brush down. The current wielder, Chicory, is immensely talented and beloved by all… until all the color in the land vanishes, and her with it! I guess that leaves it up to you, her number one fan, to take up the brush and fill in for her. Hmm… good luck!
The creators of Chicory have put together some really awesome in-game rewards as well as various artwork and merchandise created by the team’s very own artists; Alexis Dean-Jones and Madeline Berger. In addition, that team also includes: Lena Raine and Em Halberstadt, the composer and sound designer respectively. See the list below for the goodies you can look forward to as a backer.
We here at myPotatoGames can’t wait to help Chicory paint the whole world! Most importantly, you’ll be able to too when the game releases sometime in “202X” on Steam (PC, Mac).
Aug 16, 2019News
A Hat in Time is a game that has maintained overwhelmingly positive feedback on Steam since its launch in late 2017. A few months after its Mac and PC release, it was also brought to PS4 and Xbox One, but there were no plans to bring it to the Nintendo Switch at the time. That has now changed! Very recently the news surfaced that it was not only confirmed to be coming to the Switch, but has a physical release date of October 18, 2019.
A Hat in Time is a very cute 3D adventure platformer featuring a little girl in a big top hat, known simply as “Hat Kid”. Hat Kid’s goal is easy to sympathize with: she wants to get home. But as she is on her way there, the Mafia of a nearby planet attack her ship when she won’t pay their ‘toll’. All of her ship’s fuel (magical hourglasses called ‘Time Pieces’) is scattered to the world below. She must gather them all up before she can resume her journey. Looks like she’ll need to look pretty hard!
Some rather morally bankrupt characters surround Hat Kid. In addition to the Mafia, there is ‘Mustache Girl’. Mustache Girl wants to use Hat Kid’s Time Pieces to travel in time so that she can become a superhero. In refusing (because disrupting time is very dangerous), Hat Kid gains a rival in collecting her Time Pieces back up. Mustache Girl now wants to find them and keep them for herself!
And so your trials begin! In addition to collecting Time Pieces, each level also contains yarn balls, and Hat Kid can use them to make herself some new hats. Each hat imbues Hat Kid with a different power! Each different ability will be useful in traversing the world across which Hat Kid’s Time Pieces are scattered. Relics must also be collected, as each one is part of a puzzle.
This cute adventure looks like a great fit for Nintendo Switch. We’re all eagerly keeping an eye on the Nintendo eShop to see when it will appear. The ‘Seal the Deal’ DLC that was available on PC will be included free with a physical copy of the Switch version. (You will have to download it separately from the main game.) We hope that the DLC content will also make it to PS4 and Xbox One in the future.
The Switch version of A Hat in Time will also include a new co-op mode! Check out this trailer for a very cute overview of the game:
If you’re looking for more information on A Hat in Time, you can check out the Steam page. Or go to the official site. If you like 3D platforming games, then look into Tamarin, as well! If you want a cute platforming game you can play right now, try The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince.
Aug 15, 2019News
TY the Tasmanian Tiger was a platform game developed by Krome Studios and published by EA Games back in 2002 and was available for the Nintendo GameCube, the PS2 and the Xbox. Three sequels were released shortly after on the same consoles and later ported to the Game Boy Advance. In 2016, a remaster was brought to PC (Steam). Now Krome Studios are back and in just three short days successfully completed their Kickstarter campaign and still going strong with over $100,000 in pledges at the time of writing. If you were a fan of these games growing up, head on over for some awesome rewards and stretch goals! We here at myPotatoGames are big fans of the nostalgic platforming games such as Crash Bandicoot/Team Racing and Spyro which already have their own remasters so it’s definitely been a great year for comebacks.
TY the Tasmanian Tiger HD is the remastered port from the PC with the improved the graphics and audio. With the Nintendo Switch digital port, if that’s your console of choice, you can use the new controls which will let you use the joy-cons like boomerangs to throw and glide! The Nintendo Switch version will also include the following (PS4 and Xbox will be getting the same upgrades minus the motion controls):
You are TY, the last of the Tasmanian Tigers. Raised by a family of Bilbies, you can only vaguely recall your real parents. You’ve always thought that all the other Tassie Tigers died a long time ago. But then the Bunyip Elder found you, and told you that your family is alive, but trapped in the Dreaming. Now hold your horses… don’t get upset… you see they’re not stuck there forever, if you’re up for a bit of an adventure! You see, deep in the Outback, there’s this kind of glowy portal thing that is a doorway to the Dreaming. And around that portal there are some carvings in the rock, where five ancient mystical Talismans used to lay. Now, all you have to do is find the five Talismans, put them in the carvings, and the portal to Dreaming will open!
Besides getting a digital copy of the game on the console of your choice and your name in the credits, there are many other exciting rewards to go for such as: a beautiful 155-page artbook, a digital, CD and limited edition LP record of the game’s soundtrack, Sly’s necklace, a mug of Maurie, TY’s sun-patterned board shorts, an animal character of your likeness in the game, and a TY statuette!
We Potatoes feel pretty confident that Krome Studios’ Stretch Goal of the digital PS4 and Xbox port since they’re almost there, but there’s also once last goal that has yet to be announced. Besides that, they’e reached their stretch goals for new TY skins on the Switch and a brand new TY adventure in digital comic form.
The Kickstarter campaign has another 20 days to go but notes that the digital console keys will be distributed to backers sometime during the first quarter of year 2020. If you’re interested in Australian-themed games, check out our article here: Dinkum – Explore an Island Inspired by the Wild Australian Outback.
Aug 15, 2019Feature
If you haven’t yet heard of Garden Paws, it’s a farming simulation RPG created by Canadian indie developers Bitten Toast Games. We here at myPotatoGames have been playing the game on Steam but you’ll also be able to play the content-complete version on the Nintendo Switch December 2019. This game has been one of our favorites this year if you want to check out our previous review.
We’ve given you a list of tips for beginners, and now we’d like to share with you all of the Easter Egg locations in the town of Florens, including screenshots. Spring will be the first season you start with and every single year on Spring 15, Ester comes to town with the most amazing of prizes! If you’ve played through several years, like us, and get excited every time Spring comes along but you can’t quite find all of the eggs, well this is the guide for you! However, if you haven’t unlocked every new villager in Florens so far, know that there may be spoilers ahead.
If you want to try and find them on your own, you have until the end of Spring to do so but know that if you find all 20 eggs before, Ester will give you a bonus 10 Tickets! You’ll also want to do this all in a day or two as there is no indicator of which egg you found and haven’t yet found. There is an in-game achievement tracker but it only displays the amount you’ve found. Keep all of the eggs in your inventory (which you’ll probably need to expand at least once) and open all of your eggs at the same time.
Some eggs are rarer than others and will contain better randomized prizes as well as some Tickets. These prizes alone are worth the effort but on top of that, once you’ve collected enough Tickets, you can trade for select Easter-related prizes. You’ll probably need to save up and try again next year for the bigger prizes. Now onto the hidden Easter Egg locations!
Now you’ve found all of the Easter Eggs in Garden Paws! The prizes range in Ticket prices (10, 25, 75, etc) for the following items: several skins for your character, different colored bunnies (i.e. purple) for your habitats, balloons you can hold or use as decoration, decorated egg-shaped storage items, an egg tree, a bird bath, a large egg centerpiece, several aprons and crowns/hats, and a large blue flower fountain.
We hope this guide was helpful to you and if you have any questions, please feel free to leave us a comment! Next time we’ll be making a post about the newly added Summer Festival which includes several mini-games and summer prizes! Save up your coins because you’re going to need them!
Aug 15, 2019News
Hundred Days is an upcoming simulation game with a page already on Steam. To us it seems like a cross between a farming game and a business-tycoon or money-management game, like Chocolatier. You arrange your field and grow crops of different types of grapes to harvest them in different seasons.
But in addition to that, you also choose the recipe for your wines. It’s not all about the type of grape. The grape’s growing conditions affect its quality and attributes. Even the type of yeast you use to ferment the grapes will have an impact on the wine’s final quality. If you want to make the big bucks in Hundred Days, you’re going to have to grow the best grapes and make the best wine.
You’re even going to have to manage the soil’s PH levels. PH levels are a measure of how acidic or alkaline your soil is, and would have an effect on your grapes’ final flavour. When you harvest will also affect their attributes. With such a level of realism, we think this indie developer, Broken Arms Games, must have a real passion for vineyards and winemaking! We look forward to becoming digital oenophiles, too, once Hundred Days releases.
Broken Arms Games uses the tagline “A game of choice, nostalgia, and winemaking.” We’re intrigued by where ‘nostalgia’ comes into play! We also like that every choice you make in the game has an influence on its outcome. We’re looking forward to discovering and growing every type of grape and figuring out every last type of wine we can squeeze out of them!
Watch the video here, or go directly to the official site for even more info. We hope Hundred Days will be releasing soon, because we’re ready to dive into those lovely vineyards!
If you like money-management or tycoon-style games, check out Planet Zoo, due for release in early November. Or if it’s the farming aspect of Hundred Days that appeals to you, then have a look at our list of farming games on console.