Created by Marvelous and XSEED, Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town is a remake Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town, which was initially released for Game Boy Advance back in 2003. No longer working with Natsume, Marvelous have rebranded their farming games, hence the change from the original game title. The game was recently released on July 10th in countries such as the UK, and is set to release on July 14th in the US. The game is playable on Nintendo Switch and PC.
Story (of Seasons)
Despite there now being a rather saturated farming simulation game market, Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town still manages to earn a place amongst popular games such as Stardew Valley and My Time at Portia. In my personal opinion, it even manages to surpass such games in certain ways due to it’s adorable simplicity. The game features a charming close knit town, harvest sprites with unique personalities, and is unburdened with too many anxiety-provoking features.
Your character has inherited a farm from their grandfather which they used to visit as a child. Entrusted to restoring it to its former glory, you are entasked with raising both crops and animals.
Character Customization
A slight disappointment upon beginning the game was the lack of character customization. With only 3 different skin tones to select from and 2 character options from 2 genders (4 character options in total), the game seemed quite out of touch, and I found myself not relating to my character like I had in Stardew Valley.
For me, the gameplay experience was therefore somewhat comparable to living the lives of the pre-made characters and families in The Sims games. On the upside, a variety of different outfits, some of which are absolutely adorable, can be changed into. To do so, you simply need to interact with the mirror in your home.
Plot & Gameplay
Moving onto the game’s plot; there isn’t one. At least not in the traditional sense. However, players can watch their farm grow, as well as mine, forage, and fish. Players can also explore Mineral Town and its shops, meet the townsfolk there, make friends, and even find a potential marriage candidate if they so desire.
A nice element of continuity is that the child your character spent time with during childhood summers returns part way through the game, and is a marriage candidate.
Additional features include seasonal festivals and events, often occurring with mini-games that players can participate in. Examples include the Cooking Festival, the Frisbee Festival, the Cluck Cluck Festival, plus more.
A very much welcome addition to the game is the introduction of same-sex marriage. In the original game, players could only become best friends with NPC’s of the same sex of their character. Other changes include the introduction of two new marriage candidates, Jennifer and Brandon. Another cool feature is the introduction of a coffee cow, which produces coffee that players can harvest.
When in certain places at certain times/circumstances, players can also watch entertaining little cut scenes unfold. From gossiping, to acts of flirting to family squabbles, these cut scenes give an insight into characters’ personalities, and can also liven up the game when farming becomes a little monotonous.
Graphics
The aforementioned cut scenes utilize 3D graphics, just like the rest of the game. This a move from the 2D sprite art of the original game. The use of 3D graphics in the remake is controversial. Some have argued that the 3D graphics appear simplistic and ‘cheap’. Others, however, have shown approval of the game’s chibi-like art style, great resolution both docked and undocked, as well as it having a consistent 60 FPS.
However, from a personal standpoint, I can definitely see why the default Nintendo Switch cursor is 2D and not 3D. You can change the cursor to 3D, but I’d really suggest otherwise unless you fancy a floating box as a cursor…
Sound
I was confused to say the least upon starting the game, as I am accustomed to background music when playing farming simulation games. On the very first day of gameplay, there was no background music (BGM) whatsoever, which was rather unsettling. I messed around in settings seeing if there was a way to ‘turn it on’, but to no avail.
However, there was BGM from day 2 onwards, which also changes with each season. I then realized that the absence of music on day 1 was due to a lapse in my attention during the game’s introductory speech with the mayor. He had said that the first day there was a day to rest, and I assume the lack of BGM was to symbolize that.
A feature I found pretty cool (albeit a little eerie), is a chime at 8pm, followed by an absence of BGM and featuring the occasional hoot of an owl. This is helpful, as it is quite easy to get absorbed into all of the daily tasks and got to bed late. Going to bed late will mean that your players oversleeps the next day.
TL;DR 8pm is Bed o’clock.
Story of Seasons Friends of Mineral Town Tips and Tricks
1x bag of seeds actually covers 9x tiles of tilled soil, as opposed to 1x tile, which I wrongly assumed.
Pay attention to instructions and accept the mayor’s tutorials. It took me until nearly autumn of year 1 to realize I had to hold down the Y button on my Nintendo Switch to water more than one crop at a time with an upgraded watering can..
Befriend the 7x Nature Sprites that live in a quaint hut behind the church as soon as possible. By giving each of them gifts that they like, your friendship with them will increase. Once you have enough hearts of affection for a sprite, you can ask them to assist you on your farm (the level of affection required was 3x hearts in the original game.
Don’t chop down the fruit tree directly in front of your house as this is a source of honey, which can be used to befriend Nature Sprites. However, don’t panic if you do, as you can speak to Gotts to buy more fruit trees.
Each Nature Sprite’s favorite gift is the grass type that corresponds to their color. This is the ideal gift, as your fruit tree will only spawn 1x honey from the tree’s beehive each day. However, not all types of colored grass can be found all throughout the year. Since most Nature Sprites seem to like honey and fruit, these can be gifted to the Sprites whose corresponding grass color is in season.
In order to cook and participate in the cooking festival, you will need a kitchen. To have a kitchen (and also to obtain a fridge), you will first need to upgrade your house.
If you get stuck or are looking for tips, you’re in luck! A the game is a remake of Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town (and an authentic one at that!), you’ll likely find helpful information on existing guides for the original game.
Replay Value
As the game is rather slow-paced (as is the norm for Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons games), it is unlikely you’ll immediately want to replay the game. Personally, it is the type of game I’d return to a year or two later, when my terrible memory has forgotten all about it and it’s like getting a brand new game!
Personal Overview
Albeit slow-paced, one of the most appealing things about the game is that there is always something to do. The phrase ‘not enough hours in the day’ really does ring true. With the only real danger/threat in the game being collapsing from fatigue, the game is definitely family-friendly. In comparison to more modern farming simulation games, some may feel that the game is too simplistic. But sometimes simple is better, especially when it comes with fond childhood memories, wholesomeness and a pinch of modern-day relevance.
The Pros
Only take up 999mb of space to download on Nintendo Switch
The most adorable of animals
If you see a beehive you don’t need to run for your life
The Cons
Little character customization
Gameplay lacks some features that more modern farming simulation games have
The 3D ‘curse-or’ of doom
★★★★
Big thanks to XSEED Games andMarvelous USA, Inc. for providing myPotatoGames with a copy of Story of Seasons Friends of Mineral Town!
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’.
Want to see what’s been going on with Hokko Life development?
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.
The developer of Hokko Life just launched an app that allows you to design clothing for Hokko Life.
HokkoLife is an upcoming farming and life sim game with loads of customization options and some absolutely adorable graphics. Robert Tatnell, the developer of Hokko Life, has recently released a load of great new details about the game, including a reveal trailer.
Hokko Designer
Another big announcement for this super cute upcoming farming indie title is the release of Hokko Designer, a new app that will allow you to upload some custom designs for your clothing in Hokko Life. The app will let you preview your designs on the clothing of two different characters from the full Hokko Life game, which you can then transfer to the full game when it releases.
Simply download the app, use the template to create in your favorite painting app (photoshop, adobe paint, etc.), and you’ll be ready to look your sharpest when the game launches in early access sometime this year.
The developer also mentions that Hokko Life will have its own in-game designer for clothing and furniture, and that only the pre-launch designer app will require a separate painting program.
With all the new information coming out all the time, I grow ever more excited to try this amazing, Animal Crossing inspired life sim.
More Info
For more information on the Hokko Designer app, and on Hokko Life in general, check out the official Hokko Life website. To stay up to date with what’s happening in Hokko Life, join the conversation on Twitter and Discord. For more great games like Hokko Life, check out my coverage of My Time at Portia.
Here are a few of the best Stardew Valley like games available now for Nintendo Switch.
Having poured many hours into Stardew Valley myself, I can certainly say that I am always stoked to find a new game that follows the same theme. There is just something so peaceful and rewarding about running your own digital farm; tending crops, feeding and loving the animals, tilling and paving for fine tuning.
While Stardew Valley has certainly the standard when it comes to simple, cute and addictive; there are many games out there that bear some resemblence and certainly deserve their time in the light. So hold on to your straw hat, cuz these are some cute farming games that just might blow you away!
My Time At Portia
My Time Portia is wonderfully charming life sim that is as beautiful as it is relaxing. Since being ported to the Switch, My Time At Portia has gone through some major updates to make it currently one of the best games on the console (personal opinion). My Time at Portia is currently available through the Nintendo eShop for $29.99. My Time at Portia Nintendo eShop Hardcopy though Amazon.
Doraemon: Story of Season
For the ones who are not familiar with Doraemon Story of Seasons, it is a crossover game that combines the best out the beloved farming sim Story of Seasons and the more adventure driven Doraemon. The game was originally released in Japan back in July of 2019 and received overwhelmingly positive feedback from fans. Now you can get it through the eShop for $49.99. Doraemon Story of Seasons Nintendo eShop Hardcopy though Amazon
Harvest Moon: Light of Hope
HM: Light of Hope
In Light of Hope, you must rebuild a town and its lighthouse to its former glory after you are shipwrecked and forced to start your life over. Farming, building and crafting about in in installment in the Harvest Moon series. Harvest Moon Light of Hope is currently available through the eShop of $39.99. Harvest Moon Light of Hope Nintendo eShop Hardcopy though Amazon
Graveyard Keeper
Graveyard Keeper
Graveyard Keeper takes the player back to medieval time, where you will have to take on all the responsibilities of a cemetery manager. The simulation game allows you gather resources to create your very own environment by building and managing your own graveyard, finding ways to cut costs and make sure that all the dead find rest and peace. Graveyard Keeper Nintendo eShop
Don’t Starve Nintendo Switch Edition
“In Don’t Starve: Nintendo Switch Edition, You play as Wilson, an intrepid Gentleman Scientist who has been trapped by a demon and transported to a mysterious wilderness world. Enter a bizarre and unexplored world full of strange creatures, dangers, and surprises. Learn to exploit the environment and its inhabitants to escape and find your way back home.” Don’t Starve Nintendo eShop
Farm Together
Farm Together
Farm Together features immersive and beautiful 3D graphics that really bring your farm to life. As the name implies you can choose to farm alone, or invite friends and share the hard farm work. Farm Together is now available on PC and Mac, you may check it out here, and is available through the eShop for $19.99. Farm Together Nintendo eShop.
Harvest Life
Harvest Life
Harvest Life is taking a cute approach to the oh so adorable farming life simulation genre. In this game the player will of course do some extensive farming, taking care of livestock and exploring the gorgeous environment. But beyond its usual farming features, the game also delivers an intriguing story line. Harvest Life Nintendo eShop
Nintendo Switch Confirmed – Littlewood
In Littlewood, you get to fully customize your town. This doesn’t just include building homes for townsfolk, plotting farming areas, furnishing your home AND the townsfolk’s homes, but it also includes customizing the elevation of the land and choosing where to put bodies of water. This interesting element of customizing the terrain brings an extra touch to making the town your own.
More Farming Games
If you’d like to see a bunch more great farming games for all consoles, available now and in the future, you can check out my coverage of fantastic farming games for console gamers.
These are just a few games that have many similarities to Stardew Valley. If you feel that I missed any that should go on the list of available for Switch farming games, let me know in the comments.
Farm Folks is a farming simulation RPG developed by Overgrown and published by Crytivo. The creators say they were inspired by the classic Harvest Moon series, and now after a successful Kickstarter, they will be bringing this game in late 2019/early 2020 to Steam (wishlist here) and Crytivo (pre-order here). Farm Folks have it all; farming, raising animals, fishing, mining, relationships, exploration, and more! If you’re interested in what the developers have been up to since our previous article, read on below.
If you didn’t get the chance to make a pledge on Kickstarter for all of the awesome rewards, Crytivo offers different tiers for pre-order purchases, the largest costing $89.99 but includes the following: Unicorn Cow Pet, Beta Access, Digital Art Book, Name in the credits, Pre Alpha Access, Full Game, Digital Strategy Guide, Wallpapers, Alpha Access (now available), Steam Key, Silver Backer Badge, and Soundtrack.
What’s New and What’s Next
The developers recently published a devblog update announcing that they have made big improvements to their core game mechanics as well as some bug fixes. Right now they are working on some changes for their crops, mainly the fact that there will now be diseases and auras! On that matter they say the following:
“We’re working on adding a few different types of diseases to the game. Each will affect your crops in a slightly different way, and require a different kind of pesticide.”
“On Softshoal Island, some species of crops have a mysterious aura surrounding them. These provide various benefits to nearby crops, such as reduced disease chance, faster growth, increased yield, or a better chance at a bumper harvest!”
Since the pre-Alpha, they have implemented weather; Sunny, Rainy, and Stormy. They’ve also added a diary to record all major and minor events (there will be a story), more buildables to unlock more areas to explore, and new animation for the farm animals. Speaking of farm animals, the developers have done away with gates and have allowed players to be able to pick up and throw their livestock! But what I’d love to learn more about most of all, are the new creatures native to Softshoal Island called Molo! They look like an adorable combination of floppy-eared rabbits and little pink piglets!
The creators of Garden Paws gave us the scoop on their upcoming new game, Potion Paws.
We here at myPotatoGames have been huge fans of Garden Paws, as you can probably tell from our Steam review here, and many post updates here. We’ve poured hours into this simulation game, so when the developers of Bitten Toast Games announced during their Twitch live-stream a few days ago that they’ve been working on another game, we were very intrigued. Dan and Kristina showed us a surprisingly spooky yet adorable game they’ve been working on alongside Garden Paws and we couldn’t be happier.
Their new game is going to be a lot simpler and shorter with a Kickstarter coming in early September and a release date on Steam before Halloween this year. Don’t worry though, they’ll still be working on the Nintendo Switch release for Garden Paws for this December! We wanted to share with the rest of you all the details of the new potion-making, dungeon-crawling, and magical game via an interview with some of the greatest game developers we know!
We’d like to thank Dan and Kristina for taking the time to answer all of our questions and we wish them all the best for their Kickstarter campaign!
Q&A with Dan and Kristina of Bitten Toast Games
What inspired you to make this particular game with a spooky theme?
Kristina: It’s something I wanted to do for a long time. I like the idea of creepy monsters dropping creepy stuff like eyeballs or tentacles. Halloween is around the corner and I love Halloween. We plan on releasing this game before then. We also wanted to push ourselves to play with particles and more special effects. We’re always trying to push ourselves to be better.
Inside Your House
Have you decided on a title for your new game? I know you were thinking Potion Paws?
Kristina: Potions Paws is the title, I love the alliteration. Also, Spooky Paws was taken.
Do you have a date in mind for your Kickstarter campaign?
Kristina: We are aiming to start the Kickstarter September 5th, where we’ll also be releasing a free demo.
Is Potion Paws related to Garden Paws? Do they share the same universe?
Kristina: It does share the same universe as Garden Paws. Based on the art style, you can tell they share the same ‘verse. You might see a familiar character from Florens too as caravan merchant.
Dan: Some items will cross over from both games.
Kristina: We’re introducing new features to Potion Paws like expanding the world around you by purchasing land, carrying heavy items that can’t fit in your inventory and combat via potions.
You mentioned we will see a familiar character from Garden Paws, will there be new villagers to meet in Potion Paws?
Kristina: No new characters, no. The idea behind this game is that you are a hermit away from civilization, slowly purchasing more land. Being solo lets the player immerse themselves in their work.
What kind of potions will we be able to craft?
Kristina: For potions we have some basics ones but also some really silly creative ones.
Dan: Some potions make you smaller/bigger, some turn you into animals, some confuse. We’re currently taking ideas from the Twitch community because we like including people. We started a spreadsheet with all of the ideas.
Kristina: We are going to hide some puzzles into the game for new potions. Potions are going to be very useful against monsters as well. You are an apothecary but you’ll be doing some fighting.
Craftable Potions
So there will be fighting in this game?
Kristina: You can battle if you like but you can play the whole game without fighting at all, you can just sneak around them. But using potions to attack monsters will get you some extra loot. If you see items in the dungeon that you want, you have to physically carry the items out and not get spotted.
What kind of items can we get from Potion Paws for Garden Paws?
Kristina: If you buy Potion Paws, you will get the crossover items for Garden Paws. There’s a furniture set, a cauldron, a skull, a skull carpet, things that are generally not seen in Garden Paws. There are also stacks of books with bookcases, and a pretty decent pile of stuff like that. We will be adding one pet as a crossover item as well, a cute spooky ghost cat that you can ride. It will be a variation of something we will have in Potion Paws, just as a bonus for supporting our Kickstarter. We wanted to make this game separate from Garden Paws because there are probably a lot of aspects people will not like in terms of spooky stuff like cobwebs. We didn’t want to force scary stuff on people if they didn’t want that.
Pet Ghost Cat
In your stream there will be very adorable sheep in Potion Paws, will there be any other animals?
Kristina: There will be sheep in the game. We just made a penguin that will be in Garden Paws and Potion Paws along with its snow habitat. So in Potion Paws there will be cows, sheep, and penguins.
Early Look at Snow Habitat and Player Character Penguin
What can we expect in these new parts of land that we can unlock?
Kristina: Specific zones might have pumpkin patches, fireflies and even ponds that you can harvest items from like fish skeletons and frog legs. There’s another area with a spooky tree where you have to harvest from a crow’s nest. But there are also secret areas that you can only access with a shrink or jump potion. It gives you a drive to keep unlocking zones.
What are the main focus points of Potion Paws? So far we have dungeons, crafting, potion-making.
Kristina: There will also be a cooking station where you create recipes as well. You can unlock more recipes and more of the land around you for more ingredients.
Cooking Recipes
How long will the game actually be? Will there be a story or an end goal?
Kristina: It’s a bit smaller of a game than Garden Paws but we think it will still be a lot of fun. The end goal would be to unlock all of the upgrades. For example: a desert station and transformation potions. As for gameplay, we’re going to be putting our demo on Discord for free before the Kickstarter and based on how long it will take everyone, we’ll be able to know roughly how long the game lasts. It will probably give a solid few hours. We’re hoping to add enough items so that you can make a spooky house in Garden Paws and unlock new content for that game.
What kind of character do we get to play and will there be any customization?
Kristina: Not much customization because it is very time-consuming to develop but we did create a slight variation of the fox from Garden Paws that has a smaller face and bigger ears. So it will look a little more like a cat. A cross between a fox and a cat. We added the fox tail to it too which is bushy. There won’t be any skin customization or clothing as we need to go back to Garden Paws because we plan to release it on the Switch in December. There’s a chance you can play this on the Switch too. It would be a good place for it, it’s a great console.
It seems you love to play your own game. What kind of other games do you both enjoy and playing?
Dan: I play a lot of Night of the Full Moon and Dungeon Defenders. It’s tower defense game I put a lot of hours into. I love dungeon games and rogue-like games
Kristina: I play Animal Crossing and other chill farming games but also play shooters. I love the multiplayer aspect of games. Portal Knights is another good one, My Time at Portia is super fun. It’s funny because we are very different gamers Dan and I. I enjoy grinding and farming, and he likes dungeon games. Our goal was to make a game we can play together so we incorporated both things in Garden Paws.
What sort of projects do you have in mind going forward? Once you’ve released Garden Paws on the Nintendo Switch that is.
Kristina: We’re always going to be making games. I have ideas for more continuations of Garden Paws that we’ll be announcing in December.
Dan: We’re also going to be using the Steam Workshop in Garden Paws so people can make their own quests for people. I’m really excited about the Workshop.
What other things to you still have left to add in Garden Paws?
Kristina: We’ll be wrapping up the story in Garden Paws, basically signaling to the players that they are done the main story. Frank will be able to build you a Tardis-like house (bigger on the inside), we need to add fruit trees and berry bushes, as well as winter games and decorations. We need to add more levels to the dungeon where our goal is to have 100 procedural levels. You’ll see in the dungeon now that there are nine doors used to access those areas. We’re working on another island to add but we’re going to change that up from what you saw on our Twitch Stream. It’s going to be one of the treasure islands that you can explore. We’re adding more creatures too, like a dragon on that island.
New Jewelry Workstation
Save the Date!
Make sure to mark September 5th, 2019 on your calendar for the Kickstarter of Potion Paws, giveaways, and to celebrate with the developers and friends via an online community event! We’ll have more screenshots and information for you going forward! You can also follow and help support Potions Paws and Garden Paws by going to the Bitten Toast Games official website or their social media pages such as: Facebook, Discord, and Twitter.
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.
Key Features
A peaceful open-world exploration-adventure full of character.
Compose paintings anywhere in the world and offer them to the locals to unlock secrets and gain items.
Acquire crafting materials and schematics to surmount obstacles and solve quests.
Make friends along the way through fully-voiced dynamic conversations and unlockable topics.
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.
The classic franchise takes on a whole new look in Turok: Escape From Lost Valley.
We at myPotatoGames don’t usually cover games that have a heavy focus on violence. Light combat is okay on occasion (we make exceptions for games like Stardew Valley and My Time at Portia), but we tend to stay away from first-person shooters and the like. However, the new graphic style in Escape From Lost Valley is just too adorable not too mention. This new title fully shifts the series into an entirely new genre. It is as though the creators of Turok met the creators of “Road Not Taken” (a cute title from the makers of Minekos Night Market), and decided to make a game together.
Trading in the old style of fast paced FPS with unique weaponry, this Turok is now a third-person action/adventure game. They have turned away from the ultra graphic violence style and dawned a more charming visage. In Turok: Escape From Lost Valley, you awake as the original protagonist that the game is named after. You must explore the lands and fight dinosaurs along side your trusted companion, Andar. The ultimate goal being finding your way back home. Although the game has been cute-ified quite a bit, you can still expect plenty of dinosaur fighting combat reminiscent of old.
Jul 12, 2020
