All posts tagged in hokko life
Dec 21, 2022
It’s that time of year where the weather gets a little frightful, and while many people are cozying up with comfy pajamas, and hiding from the weather under warm blankets, it’s the perfect time to play some fun games. Some of you may even be looking for some games to celebrate the winter festivities with. Luckily, there are a few that feed that cozy holiday need. Cozy Grove, Hokko Life, Ooblets, and Disney Dreamlight Valley are all perfect to get into that holiday spirit with.
Cozy Grove
In Cozy Grove, you play as a Spirit Scout, and are camping on an ever-changing haunted island. Wander around the forest, discover secrets, and help the local ghosts. Meet and befriend dozens of characters and ghosts. Explore each character’s story. Collect spirit animals, craft decor, go fishing, and so much more.
And Cozy Grove has a Winter Festival! The festival runs from December 20th to January 23 every year. While it’s active, you can get winter festival themed decorations, clothes, and other items. You can meet snowfolk, craft and give gifts to the bears, and challenge the imps to snowball fights. You can even lure special winter cats into your cat beckoner!
So, dress in your favorite Winter Festival attire, gather some gifts, and go have a snowball fight to celebrate the holiday season!
Cozy Grove is available on Apple Arcade, Steam, Epic Games, Nintendo Switch, Xbox, and Playstation.
Hokko Life
Hokko Life is an Animal Crossing-inspired life-sim. Spend time building the town and filling it with your favorite villagers, catch bugs, go fishing, and befriend the villagers. What sets this one apart from Animal Crossing, though, is the creative freedom you have! You get to build buildings with the help of the resident builder, and place them wherever you wish. You can also customize the interiors and exteriors of each home by placing furniture you’ve crafted and painted. Use the design table to change the shape and materials of your crafts, and paint them to suit your tastes and vision. Even the clothes can be painted
Paired with the seasonal snow, Hokko Life is a great game to play to get into the holiday spirit, or even just the cozy winter mood. Your town can be redesigned for free, so you can make it the winter wonderland of your dreams! And don’t forget about the seasonal store.
Hokko Life is available on Steam, Nintendo Switch, Playstation, and Xbox.
Ooblets
Ooblets is another charming, but weird little game that involves farming, collecting creatures, and dancing. Spend your days growing otherworldly plants on your currently ramshackle farm. Collect pieces of furniture and other design items to use in decorating, and turn your farm into a beautiful homesteading paradise. You’ll also collect and raise odd little creatures called ooblets. Grow your team of alien critters, and compete in dance-offs with them.
Much like the other games, Ooblets has a seasonal Wintertime Event that starts every December 1st, and ends December 31st. Players can travel to Badgetown, where they’ll find the Wintertime Event display. Find and collect the festive bobbles found on the ground around Badgetown, then exchange them at the Wintertime Event gotsapon machines to get an array of wintertime clothing goodies.
Ooblets is available on Nintendo Switch, Epic Games, and Xbox.
Disney Dreamlight Valley
Last, but certainly not least, is Disney Dreamlight Valley. Another cozy village life-sim game, Dreamlight Valley offers that classic Disney charm by giving players the opportunity to interact with their favorite characters. Players can spend their time gardening, cooking, fishing, home design, and much more. Complete quests and unlock the doors to the Dream Castle to help the characters return to their homes
Disney Dreamlight Valley is running a seasonal event from December 18th to the 31st called Gift of Giving Event. During this event, players can visit the castle to find a beautiful Christmas tree where they’ll be able to unwrap presents starting December 25th. Each gift will have a fun holiday-themed item. There are also festive quests and festive fishing for players to complete. Plus, players are getting creative in the Frosted Heights area, where they’re taking some beautiful holiday-themed photos.
Disney Dreamlight Valley is available on Xbox, Nintendo Switch, Epic Games, Steam, Playstation, and Apple Arcade.
Or, if you’re reminiscing on the end of the year, take a walk down memory lane with 10 Forgotten Animal Crossing Features That Made The Game More Charming And Fun.
- Aug 2, 2022
With Complete Creative Freedom Build to Your Heart’s Content and Invite New Villages to Enjoy the Fruits of Your Labour
Publisher Team17 and developer Wonderscope just released a new announcement trailer for the release date of Hokko Life! A lot of new features and updates have been added since receiving the feedback of fans and now the game has it all! You can craft, mine, fish, catch bugs, build, gather resources, farm, and befriend the anthropomorphic animal villagers!
The greatest game feature is the extensive item editing and customization options! You get to design and place every single building in town, including homes, from the exterior to the interior. Redecorating is made easy as you can freely move anything anytime anywhere. The same goes for individual items such as furniture! You can modify every separate piece of decor with different shapes, sizes, colours and textures.
Coming to Switch, PS4, Xbox One, and PC September 27th, 2022
Hokko Life has been in Steam Early Access for a little over a year now and it’s finally time for the launch of the full version! The Animal Crossing-like life and farming simulation game is officially coming to Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on September 27th, 2022!
- Jul 23, 2021
The adorable farming and life sim game Hokko Life now has a farming feature.
For those that may have missed it, Hokko Life has been described as an Animal Crossing game for PC. However, it is definitely much more than that. For starters, in Hokko Life you can actually create your own furniture and in game items from scratch!
The creation mechanism in the game allows you to create anything that your heart desires, and use it as decor in the game. Some of the items you create will even retain their proper function, like using a chair as a chair.
Hokko Life also has just about everything one could expect from a charming life sim game. You get to explore your community, help out villagers, craft, fish, resource, make friends and generally enjoy life. All of the villagers also happen to be anthropomorphic animals, so there’s that.
The developer recently revealed all the new goodies added to the game. The info was given in the form of Tweet, which also contained a short video showcasing the new additions.
Hokko Life is currently available in Early Access on Steam.
For more super cute life sim games, Haven Park is releasing soon on Nintendo Switch.
- Jun 4, 2021
The developer of Hokko Life just announced that the farming update for the game is just around the corner.
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.
Now that the game is available in Early Access on Steam, you can give the game a try for yourself. However, the game is still going through some polishing (hence the EA). Everyday the developer is working on making the game smoother and more….well, complete. To that end, he has just announced that the farming update for the game will release in July of this year.
For more great news from the farming and life sim genre, check out how amazing the new game Palia looks.
- Jun 2, 2021
The big moment we have all been waiting for is finally here, Hokko Life has launched in Early Access on Steam.
For those that happened to have missed out on this wonderful gem, Hokko Life is a super adorable life sim game that takes much inspiration from Animal Crossing. The game puts you in your own little town full of anthropomorphic animals to befriend at your leisure.
One major component that this game boasts over AC is the level of creation. You can build your own furniture from the ground up.
Crafting Description from Steam:
“Craft materials and combine them in whatever way you desire to create new and wonderful furniture and items for your town. Collect flowers, mix paints and use them to design wallpapers, flooring and even clothing! Will you design an urban-industrial furniture collection or maybe a bright flowery wallpaper set? With all of the workshop at your disposal, you’ll have complete freedom to design a town your villagers will absolutely love.”
Not to mention that this game also happens to be available on PC. Speaking of which, Hokko Life launches today in Early Access on Steam! You can now go check out the game for yourself to see what all the buzz has been about.
Hokko Life Launch Trailer
For more great news from the life sim genre, check out my speculation on the Animal Crossing New Horizons DLC.
- 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.
- Jul 18, 2020
There are so many wholesome games coming out this year! Let’s take a look at some of them together!
Garden Story
Garden Story is an upcoming social sim adventure RPG. With an emphasis on helping the residents of a broken island, this game is undoubtedly wholesome. The game is being developed by Picogram and published by Rose City Games and VIZ Media.
The planned release window for the game is currently Spring 2020, although no official date has been given. The game will be released for Microsoft Windows, MacOS and Macintosh operating systems. An official price is yet to be announced.
About:
Players assume the role of Concord, who is a recently appointed village guardian. However, you will definitely be kept on your toes. Whether it be neighbours requiring assistance, or the sudden appearance of a strange rot that has seeped into the foundations of the once thriving island, Concord has his work cut out. Fortunately, he is not alone.
If you help friends with their problems, they’ll help you with yours. Care for the environment, explore new regions, solve puzzles, make new friends, and ultimately, help restore the grove to its former glory.
Features:
- Whilst restoring a run down island, players are also able to explore and cultivate the islands four regions as ‘Concord the Grape’.
- By fulfilling residents’ requests, fostering relationships with others, and making friends with fruity people, you may find that these people will help you out in return.
- Take care of garden plots, gather resources, and ensure to upgrade your tools to allow you to take good care of your home.
- Whilst solving puzzles and defending yourself against the insidious rot, you may slowly unral the mystery behind the island’s broken past
- By depositing and cataloguing resources you can create a library featuring the island’s lore.
- At your own pace, you are able to care for garden plots each day, choose to take a walk in the evening, or can concentrate on completing favors. The ball is in your park!
- Experience new things and fill your scrapbook with usable perks and traits.
You can visit the game’s website here. Alternatively, you can check out their Twitter account here.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons ( Out now on Nintendo Switch )
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is an upcoming social simulation game where you play as a human character living on a deserted island amongst anthropomorphic animals. Players can shop, socialise with the animals, and participate in activites such as fishing, catching bugs, gardening and decorating. Nintendo are both the developers and publishers of the game. Therefore it’s understandable that the game will only be released on Nintendo Switch. The game is set to release on March 20th 2020, and will retail for $59.99
About:
Tom Nook is ‘switching’ things up with a new business venture. This business venture is his exclusive Nook Inc. Deserted Island Getaway Package. Naturally, the Tanuki isn’t offering this for free. When you have landed on the island, you also find yourself landed with debt (yet again) by the tiresome tanuki.
Like in previous games of the franchise, players can participate in activities such as gardening, fishing, decorating, and interacting with a variety of NPCs (both old and new), etc. However, the game will also offer some new features. Examples include, collecting resources, crafting furniture and tools, new ways to interact with trees and flowers, more diversity in skin tones, outdoor stair, more multiplayer options, the handy ability to pole vault rivers etc.
Then of course there’s the tiny details that Animal Crossing fans quickly picked up on. These include, shirts with sleeves for villagers, overally realistic kneecaps for players’ characters, toe beans, and even shoelaces..
Features:
- Embrace your fresh start by customising your character and home to your liking. Decorate the island’s landscape (even with furniture, if you so wish), to create your very own perfect paradise.
- Utilise a brand new crafting system and collect materials to create a variety of furniture and tools.
- Relax and enjoy the activities Animal Crossing is infamous for such as gardening, fishing, decorating and interacting with charming NPCs and more. However, they can now be enjoyed in fun new ways on the deserted island
- Up to eight players can reside on one island. Four of these residents residing on the same island are able to play together simultaneously on one console
- Up to eight players can play together on one player’s island via either online multiplayer or local wireless. (For more information regarding how multiplayer works, click here).
- More information about the game can be found here.
- An awesome selection Animal Crossing decals can be seen here.
- For a selection of must-have merchandise, click here.
- Information about US pre-order bonuses can be found here.
- Information about UK pre-order bonuses can be found here.
Mineko’s Night Market
Mineko’s Night Market is an upcoming cat-themed crafting adventure game that celebrates Japanese culture. The game is essentially about friendship, choices, and of course, cats. The indie game is being developed by Meowza Games, and being published by Humble Bundle. The game will be released on a multitude of different platforms including Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows, macOS, and Macintosh operating systems.The exact release date for the game is yet to be determined. However, the game’s official Steam page says that the game will be release in 2020. Fingers (and paws) crossed! ?
About:
Playing as Mineko, a girl who has moved to a superstitious fishing town inundated with cats, you will uncover secrets whilst assisting Mineko in becoming a successful young entrepreneur. This can be done by completing tasks, undertaking quests and gathering resources in preparation for the weekly night market.
Players can craft a variety of odd items, toys, and trinkets, which can then be sold to townsfolk (who are now your customers) at Mineko’s night market stall. After you’ve finished selling your items, you can explore the Night Market yourself, where you can play mini-games, eat unusual foods, and purchase collectibles.
The game allows you to explore distant lands by unlocking different types of transport (which include buses, bullet trains and cat carts). Each land offers new people to meet and unique things to do, dependent on the time of day and season.
There are 16 uniquely themed markets every year which all feature a stage event that you can partake in. Examples of events include Taiko drumming, karaoke competitions, sumo suit wrestling, and more!
The better you perform at the market, the bigger and better the market will become, which may well attract new townsfolk and even celebrity guests!
Features:
- Players can explore the village and surrounding areas in order to discover a variety of rare resources and more importantly, make a bunch of new friends!
- You are able to craft a variety of unusual items by utilising the resources you collect whilst exploring
- Unleash you inner entrepeneur and barter with customers at the weekly night market to sell your creations
- Wander around the night Market to discover a variety of curious culinary dlights and collectibles
- Relive your childhood and take part in a variety of different Night Market games like cat racing, pachinko, and whack-a-tako
- Solve the mysteries of the mysterious Sun-Cat Abe and Mount Fugu Island
For more information regarding the game, check out this interview with one of the lead creators of the game here. You can also visit the game’s website here.
To bag some awesome game merchandise, click here.
Ooblets ( Out Now on Early Access )
Ooblets is now out on Xbox One and PC – more info right here.
Ooblets is an upcoming indie game that combines features of popular game franchises such as Animal Crossing, Harvest Moon and Pokemon. Initially, the game was going to be published by Double Fine. Ooblets will now however be developed and self-published by the game’s two main devs, who created a tiny game studio called Glumberland in order to do this.
According to the game’s latest Devlog, Ooblets will release this year, although no definitive date has been specified. It has also been confirmed that the game will release on PC and Xbox One. The price of the game has not yet been revealed.
About:
Ooblets is essentially a game where players have to balance farm life, town life, and the unexpected pressure of having to deal with numerous different Ooblets. On the plus side, you get the experience of helping to grow and train your ooblets, explore strange lands, and have dance-offs!
Features:
- Starting a new life with a little rundown farm, you are able to improve, cultivate and customise this farm until it suits your liking
- With a variety of hairstyles and clothing to choose from, you have complete freedom to customise your character
- Break out your dance moves and take part in dance battles with both ooblets and fellow ooblet trainers alike
- Explore the world of Oob and its variety of different locations, each with unique biomes, plants, characters, and ooblets
- Plant ooblet seeds to grow your own friends. Eventually, they will bloom into baby ooblets
- Join an Ooblet Club to match your personality
- Upgrade your house and make it your own, with various decor and furniture to choose from
- Unlock some funky new dance moves by levelling up your Ooblets
- Acquire a variety of things whilst in Oob, including seeds, items, furniture, machinery, badges, and most importantly, friends.
Lots of awesome Ooblets merchandise can be grabbed here.
For more information about Ooblets, you can visit the Ooblets website here where developers regularly post updates in their devlogs. You can also follow Ooblets on Twitter and Facebook.
Rolling Hills
Rolling Hills is a life sim game where players run their own sushi restaurant in a town filled with anthropomorphic animals. The game is being both developed and published by Catch & Release, LLC. No definitive release date has been given, but developers are pushing for a 2020 release. It willl initially only be released on PC via Steam, but there is the possibility of the game being released on other consoles also.
About:
Rolling Hills is a life sim game where you get given your very own sushi restauraunt in a small village. This restaurant has been offered for free by inhabitants of the village. The only catch is that you help to rebuild their town. Players will have their work cut out. When not occupied with the sushi shop, you also need to rebuild the town as promised and improve the lives of your neighbours. On the plus side, you’ll make friends along the way. If you’re lucky, you’ll also attract some new villagers.
Make your restaurant successful by collecting different recipes and buying ingredients. You can then use your profits to profit the town. Watch your town improve and better the lives of townsfolk, customers and yourself through the actions you make.
Features:
- Assume the role of a novice sushi chef and start a brand new life in your very own sushi restaurant (which fortunately happens to be equipped with a fully-automated conveyor belt)
- Make new friends and socialise, whether you want to hang out at the cafe, participate in a role-playing game, or show off your knowledge (or not) at trivia night
- Improve your restaurant by acquiring furniture and uphold your end of the bargain by building public works projects across town
- Train and utilise your very own sushi robot to help keep your restaurant running… Your loyal lackey will even cover for you after switching the game off!
- Head down to the river and go fishing for fresh sushi fish. Also, you can be a model citizen and use the magnetic rod to reel in trash.
- Grow yourself some fresh vegetables by building garden boxes
You can follow the progress of Rolling hills on Twitter here.
Hokko Life
Hokko Life is an upcoming cute and cozy village life simulation game. The game is being both developed and published by indie game developer Robert Tatnell. Hokko life will be released for PC via Steam at some point this year. The cost of the game is not yet known.
About:
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 expertise. Help tocreate an endearing town for those who live there. Armed with paint and tools, design, build and decorate new homes for your new friends.
Players are able to craft materials and combine them however they wish. This allows you to create new and amazing furniture and items for the town. By collecting flowers and mixing paints, you can then use them to design wallpapers, flooring and even clothing.
With plenty of choice, you could design a bright flowery wallpaper set, or instead opt to create an urban-industrial furniture collection. Whatever your taste, with a workshop at hand, you have complete freedom when designing a town for the villagers.
Features:
- Chop, mine and dig for resources by venturing out to the forest or the abandoned mine. After bringing those resources back to town, you can craft them into materials that are usable 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.
Click here to check out an exclusive interview with the game’s solo developer.
You can visit the game’s website here.
Calico
Developed by Peachy Keen Games and published by Whitethorn Digital. Calico is a magical, relaxed and family-friendly simulation game where players are given an opportunity to run their very own cat cafe. The game is expected to be released on Steam at some point during Summer 2020. The game will most likely release on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and MacOS shortly afterwards.
About:
Calico came about due to the game developer’s obsession with cats, magical girls and fluffy animals. However, wanting to create a game that would appeal to everyone, she also included creatures such as lizards, birds, deer, raccoons, dogs, turtles, red pandas, foxes, etc.
She then shares about how she wanted to publish a game that would make players feel ‘soft, happy, cuddly and cozy’. If that wasn’t wholesome enough, she has said in an interview that she just wanted to create a game where the only goal is to have the best time possble.
However, simply running the cat cafe is not the only things that players can do. The game also incorporates enjoyable aspects from other popular gaming franchises such as Animal Crossing. Similarities between Calico and Animal Crossing include the simulation aspects of both games, and the ability to place furnitire and decorations in your buildings. A perk about Calico however, is that the animals will not leave, the shop never closes, and crops never die.
Features:
- As all animals are interactive, players can explore the village to find cats and other animals, including raccoons, deer, dogs, turtles, red pandas, foxes, lizards, etc. The animals can be befriended, petted and played with
- Players can ride on giant cats ( as you do? )
- Run your café by filling it with animals, furniture and yummy café eats!
- Use magic potions to change your animals and environment
- Meet magical girls, witches and other townspeople who you can help and befriend
Little Witch in The Woods
Little Witch in The Woods is an upcoming life simulation RPG. The game is currently in development by Sunny Side Up Games. No official release date has been given, but the developers are aiming for fall of 2020. They plan to release the game on Steam, and are hoping to release the game on Nintendo Switch and PS4.
About:
Little Witch in the Woods is an adorable fantasy RPG. You play as a super cute witch named Ellie. Close to graduating from witch school and becoming true witch, Ellie must experience the life of a witch as an apprentice. This involves moving to a new town and living in a witch’s house in a forest. Upon arriving to the town however, she is inevitably disappointed to find the in a state of disrepair, and a town which is virtually empty.
As the school is grading how well Ellie completes various tasks, she must explore the mysterious and magical region to gather the ingredients necessary for her potions. These potions can be used in other ways in the game too. Many of the ingredients can be acquired from obliging plants and creatures. The more rare ingredients can be obtained in the nearby village, where a curious bunch of NPC’s reside. By helping them out, they will reward you with ingredients, and some useful items as well.
Additionally, lending these characters a hand improves your relationship with them, and allows you to upgrade the small village. The game’s NPC’s, each with their own stories can sometimes move in or out of the village. It is possible to date these NPC’s, but they may not be human..
Features:
- Experience life as a witch apprentice in a mysterious fantasy world
- Explore the game’s mysterious and magical village and region
- Connect with a variety of plants and animals in a unique ecosystem
- Gather the the ingredients required for potion-making from obliging plants and animals. Rarer ingredients can be obtained as rewards for helping out NPC’s
- Create a variety of different potions such as the: Healing Potion, Clean Potion, Tickling Potion, Twinkle Potion, Sneezing Potion and Hush Potion
- Meet the handful of residents in the the small village, each with their own story.
- Upgrade the village into a larger one by lending a helping hand to its inhabitants
- Woo NPC’s enough, and you may find yourself a lifelong partner (although it may not be a human)
Check out an interview with the game’s developers here. You can follow the developers on Twitter here.
For more witch-y games, check out these ones.
You can also check out these upcoming magic school games and add them to your calendar.
Alchemic Cutie
Alchemic Cutie is a wholesome pixel-art-stylised RPG set on a colourful Island named Wimba, where you players can tame wild jellies. The game is in development by Vakio and Viridian Software, and will be published by CIRCLE Entertainment this summer. Alchemic Cutie will be released on itch.io. and Steam. A price has not yet been announced.
About:
Set on Wimba island, players get to tame slime-like creatures called Jellies. There are over 4,000 visual styles for jellies, each with unique traits and statistics. Players will have to meet the needs of their Jellies, which inlcude hunger, energy and happiness. Raise the perfect jelly companions and you may be in with a chance of claiming the top prize in one of the game’s eight competitions. In order to improve your jelly’s abilities, you can use alchemy in order to create special items with various powerful affects or to change items into something more rare and powerful. When you’re all jellied out, you can explore the island and uncover its secrets. In the village you can chat with its inhabitants and choose whether to form friends, or if you’re so inclined, rivals.
Features:
- Explore Wimba island and discover various jellies, items and quests
- Wander around a village and befriend the quirky, entertaining, and complicated characters that live there
- Utilise the Jelly raising and alchemy systems available for players to master
- Participate in a total of 8 fun jelly competitions where you can show off your Jelly raising skills and win medals
- Utilise the game’s modding feature and add your own villagers, quests, items, maps and more to grow Wimba Island. You can even build an island your own
- Release day modding support
- Share Jellies with others using special codes
If you would like to receive updates regarding the gaem, or share your modding creations after the game’s release, you can do so by signing up to the game’s ‘Cutie Club’ here.
Peaceful Days
Peaceful Days is a farming RPG simulation game reminiscent of Harvest Moon games. The indie game is being developed by Nhat Nguyen and published by Nhat Nguyen and Huiyin Studio. According to the game’s Steam page, Peaceful days is set to release for Microsoft Windows on August 31st 2020. It is currently priced at £7.19.
About:
Heavily inspired by the Harvest Moon series, Peaceful Days is a farming simulation set in the attractive Aurora Town, which is located by the sea. Living up to its title, the game appears to be peaceful and wholesome. Players have the freedom of character customisation and farm customisation too! Players can build friendships with the town’s inhabitants, become an important addition to the small seaside town, and participate in a variety of interesting festivals. Additionally you are able to build your very own farm from scratch. In your spare time, you are free to discover fish that you have not yet caught, spend time in the mine to discover ores necessary to upgrade your tools, play minigames, solve puzzles plus more.
As of February 3rd, an early access version of Peaceful Days became available on Steam.
Features:
- The ability to customise your farm, with 15 different types of buildings to choose from
- The ability to customise your character
- Players can receive various requests from the town’s inhabitants, including making deliveries, searching for items or part-time jobs etc, with the game’s request system
- Minigames
- Festivals to participate in
- The ability to raise a variety of different animals, waiting for you to unlock
- Grow lots of crops every Season
- Uncover secrets about the town
- The presence of mine puzzles waiting to be discovered over at least 20 mine floors
Upcoming features include:
- A house customisation system
- Improvements in character customisation
- ‘Heart Events’
- More minigames
- More mines floors and puzzles
