Exploration Archives - myPotatoGames
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All posts tagged in Exploration

  • svgMar 28, 2024Indie Highlight

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    Set off on a single-player, top-down adventure through a gorgeously crafted world in Cozy Caravan. Explore picturesque landscapes via your bee-drawn (no trusty horse steed here!) caravan. With your best friend Bubba by your side, set up a mobile market in each town and hamlet you come across.  Trade with the locals to earn some money, and even help them out a little! You might need to give someone a ride in your caravan, or pick the carrots from their garden. Whatever needs to be done, you’ll deepen your connection with each character as well as learn their stories. It’s not all work and no play, though! Some of the townspeople will want to just relax and participate in some fun activities with you. 

    Release Date

    Cozy Caravan is coming to Steam sometime. There is no listed release date!

    Perhaps Coffee Caravan would interest you too?

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  • svgMar 21, 2024Indie Highlight

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    Set out on an exciting adventure in this whimsical exploration platformer Promenade! The Great Elevator has been broken, and its cogs are now scattered across the world. It’s up to you to explore the world and find those missing cogs. You’re not alone, though. Your trusty little poulp friend has many abilities that you’ll find useful in your journey.

    Promenade is a colorful and cute game that features a unique world full of puzzles, mysteries, and so much more. Encounter unique characters. Explore dungeons and defeat the bosses you find there. Use different items you find to your advantage, too. Nothing is off limits! 

    Inspired by classics like Mario 64, Banjo-Kazooie, Spyro, this game is sure to be entertaining. 

    Release Date

    You can find Promenade on Steam, Switch, Xbox, and PlayStation now!

    Re:Fresh is another cozy platformer you should check out!

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  • svgFeb 29, 2024Indie Highlight

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    Your farm in Peppermint Falls by JellyFrog Games is like no other farm you’ve encountered. You’ll grow blueberry muffins, harvest gummy bears from bushes, and nurture ice cream in the winter seasons. Raise farm animals like cows that produce strawberry milk and collect chocolate eggs from your chickens. The town is small, but cozy, and offers much more to do than just farming, too. Cook delicious meals, experiment with alchemy, go mining for resources, or even fish for some fun aquatic creatures. You can even battle monsters or work in the town’s cafe! Don’t forget to forge relationships with the townspeople, too. Learn their backgrounds and earn some great friendships, or even start a family with someone.

    When you tire of the small town, set out on an adventure to explore the wide world of Peppermint Falls. Your house, which is made of pancakes, can walk, and will ferry you around the different biomes of the world! It’ll accompany you to the furthest corners of the world and patiently wait for you to complete your adventures. It’ll even sprout new rooms from time to time. While exploring, perhaps you can uncover what happened to the original inhabitants. The world used to be ordinary and not covered in confectionary creatures, after all.

    Release Date

    Peppermint Falls is coming to Steam sometime soon. Add it to your Wishlist now!

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  • svgFeb 14, 2024News

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    If you’re unfamiliar with Kynseed, it’s a lovely farming sim that dives deeper and brings more to the table than most farm sims. Run your farm and customize it to your tastes. Run a business of your choice like a blacksmith, apothecary, or general store. Craft items, battle monsters, and get to know the townspeople. Even get married and raise children!

    There is so much to do and experience in this gorgeous game, and now there’s a huge update called “The Big Build Update” that has recently been released. If you already own this game, the developers suggest you restart with a brand new character so you can get the full experience of all the new things.

    The Big Build Update

    The following is the huge list of content this update brings to Kynseed.

    • Customize the look of your farm’s interior and exterior.
    • Buy new farm plots.
    • A certain Fairweather item might also give you a further area to customize
    • New farm structures.
    • Repair structures like bridges to access new areas.
    • Fix statues and stalls to make travel and commerce easier.
    • Repair houses that can be destroyed by the encroaching evil creatures of the land.
    • New Axe and choppable trees for wood collection
    • New Stone resource.
    • Track all your progress through Progress Screen with a picture that fills in as you go.
    • 400+ challenges to complete
    • Items screen gives a breakdown of number found, total collected and the highest rating acquired.
    • Relationship screen tracks all current npcs and your relationship with them.
    • Story/Event keeps a history of parts of the game you have already discovered.
    • Shops give a brief overview of how your shops are doing.
    • Customization catalogue shows you all items you can unlock and what activities will unlock them.
    • New Noticeboard Tasks
    • Talent system means each NPC, including your children, has their own skill which can be used to your benefit.
    • New dialogue
    • New relationship cutscenes
    • The type of an NPC’s like/dislike can now be seen on their info
    • NPCs now travel between levels and have had other AI tweaks.
    • Your previous family can visit from time to time

    Plus so much more! There are bug fixes, some story pacing adjustments, and batch crafting. Unlock proverbs, there’s a star rating for items, and a new instant message system that alerts you to events, tasks, and shop alerts for low stock. And there’s even more than that, which you can go check out on Kynseed’s Steam page!

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  • svgFeb 7, 2024Reviews

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    It’s February already, and that means it’s Steam Next Fest time! I’ve written about past Next Fest demos that I fell in love with here and here. This time, I’m bringing you an even bigger list of cozy games because this Next Fest is packed full of great ones. From interior design games, farming sims, and creature collectors, to gardening and diorama makers, there’s so much to see this time around. So, without further ado, here’s a whopping 10 different Steam Next Fest demos you need to try this month!

    Make Room

    Make Room is a relaxing little diorama designer game. Use hundreds of different items to craft the perfect spaces in each environment. Set up a charming country kitchen, build a comfy reading nook, or design the coziest living room you can think of. You have total control over where items are placed, so you can make your interior design visions come true. 

    The icons in this game are SO small, but the item options and color choices are perfect for creating some great rooms. The sandbox mode is great for strictly creating on your terms. The objectives mode is easy and relaxed, even though you must build to certain specifications. And creating things on a smaller scale makes creating a lot less overwhelming.

    Critter Crops

    Critter Crops is a gorgeously designed game where you play as Sylvie. She’s a newfound witch who’s been run out of her town because of her abilities. As Sylvie, you arrive on Mutter Island where you discover you can grow magical Critter Crops. These special plants can help you restore the island to its former glory. When you’re not farming, explore the lovely little island you now call home, gather resources, mine, and get to know the people you come across.

    What a delightfully whimsical game! The art is very unique, and the crops are too. Raise creatures by growing crops that are very, very different from what you’re used to. The town and crops and creatures are all slightly spooky, which is perfect for the Halloween-loving player who dislikes actual scary things. The color palette and the music is super pleasing, too. Talk about a farm sim with a twist!

    Everholm

    In Everholm, you play as Lilly, a young woman looking for her lost sister, Melanie. While out searching, you come across a mysterious portal that beckons you to the cute and cozy little island of Everholm. Weirdly, everyone there seems to recognize you, too, like you’re an old friend. So, embark on an adventure full of mysteries, magic, and relationships as this sim game is all about learning new skills and living together in harmony with others. Farm, forage, fish, raise livestock, and more. 

    Here’s another beautiful game. This time, it’s a lovely pixel art style game with a great story behind it. I like that your character actually holds a conversation with the NPCs, too. You’re not just subjected to a one-sided monologue. Plus, the NPCs exhibit some really great personalities through their speech. It’s clear this game was lovingly made. 

    Furnish Master

    Furnish Master is a relaxing interior design game where you furnish apartments, houses, commercial estates, and outdoor spaces. Use intuitive controls to place each piece of furniture and decor how you like it. Painstakingly choose color schemes and materials for your furniture to match the theme of each room. Even resize items so they fit perfectly in a space. As you complete spaces, earn money so you can buy new properties to continue decorating. You can also engage in story mode where you can buy properties across a single city. Even take on some challenges and puzzles in story mode to unlock new items.

    Here’s another diorama-like interior design game, but this time has a far more complex system and more involved missions. Paint the walls to certain specifications, furnish a whole kitchen with specific items, and use your hard-earned money to decorate your own place or buy other properties. There was even a puzzle level in the story mode where you search a room for puzzle pieces and put it together. If the levels have that much variation, I think it’ll be a really fun game. Not to mention the furniture options are varied, there’s a pretty great placement mechanic that includes snapping, and the graphics are nice. This is great for folks who want a little more direction and a more involved interior design game. 

    Botany Manor 

    Botany Manor takes place at a stately home in 19th century England, and you play as Arabella Greene, a retired botanist who lives at the manor. Spend your days exploring the different rooms of your historically accurate manor. Get to know Arabella and her career as a woman in science through your explorations. Discover beautiful gardens and sprawling countryside vistas as you take in the relaxing nature around you. Take care of a variety of plants by finding their seeds and planting them in the appropriate environments. Inspect newspapers, letters, paintings, and more to get a better understanding of the needs of your plants. Care for them and help them flourish by meeting their exact needs, and watch as your efforts are rewarded!

    The visuals are just breathtaking in this game. They’re by no means highly realistic levels of art, but the designs of plants, the architecture, and the dynamic lighting work perfectly together to create such a charming environment. The manor grounds are to die for. I’d love to have my own home with a garden and orchard as beautiful as this one! Searching for clues on how best to grow the plants adds an element of fun beyond simple gardening. It gives you a reason to look around the manor, but also makes you feel like a researcher, which the character you play is! If you play nothing else on this list, play this game. It’s so worth it.

    Minami Lane

    Welcome to Minami Lane! This lovely little life sim lets you build your very own street where you can decorate and manage shops. Build homes to attract villagers to your street. Keep them happy by beautifying the area with decorations, shops, and attractions. Build ramen shops, boba cafes, bookstores, and more. Each shop has its own inventory and effects on the neighborhood. Play missions for a challenge or sandbox mode to focus on the creative side of building. 

    This was such an enjoyable experience. There are goals and missions to complete, but they weren’t super high-stakes or difficult to complete. The overall graphics are gorgeous and soft and adorable. I love the Japanese-inspired architecture and street design. It’s nostalgic for me, and brings a sense of comfort. Overall, this game is perfect if you want a city-builder with more than just creative building. 

    Lightyear Frontier

    Lightyear Frontier is the cozy farm sim set on an alien planet and uses mechs to farm! That’s right, you get to pilot your own fleet of mechs to get things done around the farm or go out exploring the gorgeous world around you. Build your new home and develop a flourishing farm by growing alien crops. Explore your surroundings and restore them by cleaning up pollution and clearing invasive weeds. Discover the secrets of the world, and do it all while playing solo or together with friends.

    What’s better than a farm sim? A farm sim with semi-realistic art where you pilot a mech suit to farm and explore, of course! This is seriously such a fun concept, and the different advanced tools you have access to make things even more fun. Vacuum up some water or seeds. Use your spikesaw to obliterate rocks and bushes. It’s a very modern sci-fi take on farm sims, and I love it! 

    Night Stones

    In Night Stones, you find yourself trapped in a dream in a world full of magic and a rich story. Upon waking, you find yourself still in this world and must discover the secrets of the world and find a way home. Explore the beautiful world of Mythica where you’ll encounter Night Stones. These stones will turn night into day, and vice versa, allowing you to meet new characters. Complete quests to gain new abilities that will help you to further your mission. There’s no combat in this game, but there are enemies you’ll need to outsmart to accomplish your goals!

    This was such a short demo, but I loved it. Movement is smooth. Controls are super easy. The art is cartoony, but lovely. Animations looked great, too. All of it comes together to present such a good demo that makes me excited for the full game!

    Kamaeru: A Frog Refuge

    Kamaeru is an adorable farm sim where you farm, raise frogs, and preserve nature. Transform the surrounding wetland into a hospitable home for your amphibian friends. Meanwhile, feed, breed, and care for a variety of frogs. In fact, there are over 500 frogs for you to collect! You’ll need to figure out how to attract new types of frogs, then breed them together to unlock rare colors and patterns. Take pictures of your cute pals, and decorate the refuge to make the coziest little from rescue! 

    I loved the watercolor-like art in this game, and a comfortable creature collector. Playing is calm and easy. The frogs are adorable, plus restoring the wetlands is a fulfilling objective. Decorations are adorable and fun to place. There is a tic-tac-toe mini game to breed frogs together that adds a fun element, and there are more minigames mentioned to be coming with the full version. This makes me excited for the full version because it ought to be packed with a lot of great things to do. 

    Summerhouse

    Summerhouse is a relaxing building game. That’s it! Build structures on a small scale to create cute neighborhoods. Set your neighborhoods near the sea, in the middle of the city, or nestled in the majestic mountains. There are no rules, no goals, and no objectives to this game. The focus is purely on creative building. So, kick-back and relax with some building!

    This one reminds me a lot of Townscaper. You just simply unleash your creativity and build, but instead of creating whole cities and villages, you’re creating houses, apartment buildings, or shops. The art is beautiful and relaxing, and so is the music. This is a great game if you’re looking to get creative without the constraints of missions or timers.

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  • svgJan 31, 2024Indie Highlight

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    Abyss: New Dawn is an upcoming cozy game from indie developer Aloya Studio currently listed on Kickstarter. The game is a charming farm sim and adventure game set in an enchanting world. You start your journey in New Dawn Land, the first floor of a 10-floor world. Each floor has its own ecosystems, climates, and landscapes. Embark on an adventure full of all kinds of fun activities. Explore gorgeous areas. Raise adorable creatures and useful pets. Gather resources and take on some intriguing challenges, and so much more! 

    Start your new adventure by customizing your character with cute clothes and other traits. Team up with friends or fly solo to create a flourishing homestead where you grow a variety of crops and take care of some cute farm animals. Abyss: New Dawn features 13 different crops already, with a stretch goal that will add more glowing plants and farm crops, as well as the ability to cook these items. There are also 7 different farm animals already in the game, as well as pets and dinosaur mounts who can help you with your tasks. You even need to build the town yourself. Once you do that, you’ll have NPCs move in at your request, and they can provide you with the necessary goods for your exploration.

    When you’re not busy exploring and fighting bosses in the caves, take time to decorate your home in Abyss: New Dawn. You can create the perfect cozy interior for you and your friends to hang out in. Your friends can even contribute and place furniture they’ve earned into your home. Then, go fishing or bug catching to build up a cool collection to show off! 

    Release Date

    This lovely little game is currently listed on Kickstarter. The timeline there states a hopeful release for the end of next year, with early access coming before that. There are plans for launch on Steam, Switch, PlayStation, and Xbox!

    Solarpunk is another unique farm sim I think you should take a look at!

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  • svgJan 31, 2024Reviews

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    Echoes of the Plum Grove by Freedom Games is a farm sim where you play as what looks like a person straight from Colonial America. You embark on a journey to a new land to settle and set up a farm where you’ll live out your dream life. However, disaster strikes, and you find yourself washed up on the shores of Honeywood island. There, you’re returned to health and handed a parcel of land to tend to. Spend your days farming, getting to know the townspeople, decorating, cooking, and fishing. Even build a legacy and play through different generations of the family you built. 

    The Demo is a Great Peek at the Coming Fun

    I received the demo of Echoes of the Plum Grove and I am in love! The graphics in this game are so charming and I’m enamored by them. The environments are gorgeous and full of life. Each building has its own personality, but the map thankfully labels the buildings so you have an easier time navigating around town. Run into the cozy bakery for tasty treats, or visit the accommodating town hall to talk to the mayor, then run down to the bog to talk to the mysterious town witch. There’s different areas to explore that exhibit their own vibes perfectly.  Plus, there’s fast travel between signposts! 

    I also really enjoy the character designs of Echoes of the Plum Grove. They’re varied and the different outfits seem to match character personalities. They also have a Paper Mario feel as they’re not 3D. The dialogue seemed pretty baseline and normal, but not unique enough to set it apart from other games. What’s really fun is that you can make choices to befriend the people or antagonize them and make enemies. The generational family aspect is quite unique, and is something I think will set this game apart from others. Raising your children, then playing as them, or others, after your character perishes is a fresh take many have craved. Eternal youth is great, but getting the chance to grow old and have family that are more than just there is fantastic.  

    I can’t wait for this game to be released! 

    Release Date

    You can find Echoes of the Plum Grove on Steam, where you can Wishlist it. However, the Steam page lists the release date as this year. I’m hoping it’s sooner, rather than later.

    Blue Oak Bridge is another cute farming sim, but with magic and weird little creatures.

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  • svgJan 17, 2024News

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    League of Legends is a multiplayer online battle arena that released way back in 2009. It continues to be one of the most played online games worldwide, and now Riot has teamed up with Graveyard Keeper’s developer to take on a whole new genre: farming sims! 

    Bandle Tale: A League of Legends Story is a delightful farming and crafting sim set in the city of Bandle, home of the furry yordles. You play as one of those yordles, a shy one who lives in Yarnville. It’s an isolated little island obsessed with knitting, but 101-year long apprenticeship has come to an end, and you yearn to see what the world has to offer beyond the portals that connect the world. A party you attend goes awry, though, and the portals collapse as a result! 

    Equipped with your unique knitting magic, you’ll embark on a grand adventure to restore the portals of Bandle Tale! Team up with some of the champions from League of Legends who will help you in your quest. Encounter a variety of curious creatures. Also gather resources to craft some neat items with, and awaken the magical portals. That’s not all, though! You’ll get to throw parties and festivals for the town to entertain your fellow residents. Grow crops, cook tasty dishes, and even build gadgets to delight your guests with. 

    Will you restore the portals?

    Release Date

    Bandle Tale is listed on Nintendo Switch, Steam, Epic Games, and GOG. There is no specific release date, but it is expected sometime this year!

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