All posts tagged in Life sim
Sep 14, 2023
Palia is a free-to-play cozy MMO all about farming, cooking, fishing, and more. Expand your homestead and build a gorgeous home for yourself, while you’re at it. Play solo or with friends and immerse yourself in a beautiful new world full of interesting characters and compelling storylines.
August 10th, 2023 saw Palia enter the Open Beta phase, and the developers over at Singularity 6 have spent a lot of time patching bugs. This month also saw the very first game-wide event called the Maji Market. Players are able to set off mesmerizing fireworks, buy some tasty treats, complete a few quests, and take part in the Chappa Chase!
What’s New
Now, Palia has had its first update since entering Open Beta, and it’s got some fun content. Players can now explore the Temple of Flames and complete the bundles it has. Finish all four bundles to receive the very special Ancient Rock Garden item that can be placed in your yard. The fabled Kitsuu will visit the rock garden, and you can offer up items to it once a day for a chance at some rewards. Even more fun is that players can now befriend Tau, Hassian’s canine companion. You’ll even receive a cute Tau plushie for completing his friendship quests!
That’s not all this Palia update has to offer, though. You can pick up a brand new furniture set, the Emberborn Set. In celebration of the Temple of Flames being added, this new set is a beautiful, fiery addition to anyone’s home. Zeki’s Wondrous Machine has new items for you to win, too. And you can now multi-craft recipes on the workbench, which is such a relief to me. I couldn’t efficiently flood my plot of land with torches before! Players can now grow corn and spicy peppers in their gardens, as well as cook a number of new dishes:
There’s also some cosmetic shop updates, which you can read about, as well as a list of fixed bugs, and a list of known bugs that are being worked on. You can access all of that, plus the full patch notes here on their website!
- Sep 7, 2023
In Dolphin Spirit: Ocean Mission, you’re on holiday on the beautiful tropical island of Maupiroa. Your vacation isn’t going to be easy, but you have your grandpa to lean on for help, as well as the other island inhabitants! Embark on an amazing adventure to learn about the folklore and traditions of the island to save it from destruction. Immerse yourself in the heritage of your ancestors to uncover the secrets of the magic totems.
Dive into the depths of the sea and explore with your dolphin friend Keanu. Discover the hidden treasures as you explore the gorgeous, colorful underwater landscapes. You’ll learn about marine life and ecology. Take time to help the inhabitants of Dolphin Spirit: Ocean Mission with conservation efforts. Figure out how to preserve the endangered lives of marine life by using your powers. Even take pictures of all the critters you come across in to fill out your codex!
Coming Soon!
This beautiful game is releasing in just 3 short weeks on September 28th! You can find it on Steam, Epic Games, Nintendo Switch, and PlayStation.
For more ocean exploration, check out Beyond Blue. And if you want more creature photography, try Alba: A Wildlife Adventure!
- Aug 30, 2023
Hometopia is a building simulation that turns you into a home designer and developer in a realistic virtual world. You’ll build your career step by step, starting from the beginning and progressing to professional home designer as you go. Learn the ins and outs of the industry and level up your skills to unlock unique content.
Engage in a dynamic job system that offers a variety of tasks to complete. Successfully execute one-room makeovers or build whole homes from the foundations to the roof. Hometopia gives you the tools to seamlessly create and design for your clients. Enter first person view to get a better look at the interiors, or use overhead view for plotting the area better. Plan layouts of homes and plots by deciding the size and placement of each room. The grid-less designing allows you to place furniture exactly where you want it, and the color wheel lets you pick the perfect colors for each item. There’s even a workshop for custom items so you can achieve the perfectly designed spaces of your dreams!
Hometopia even has player homes for you to create and design with total freedom for yourself. And if you don’t want to design alone, play co-op with up to three others to complete tasks. Solo or together, design homes across five different neighborhoods and build a successful career!
Coming Soon!
Hometopia will release in just 3 short weeks! September 27th, you’ll be able to grab a copy of this fun home builder on Steam.
For more home building fun, there’s of course The Sims 4, Adorable Home, or even Castaway Home Designer.
- Aug 29, 2023
Blue Gravity was kind enough to provide a copy of Little Sim World for me to play!
I received a pre-alpha demo version of Little Sim World to play, which means I got an early view of a game that is growing bigger and better nearly weekly. What I saw, however, was already incredibly promising.
What Is It?
Little Sim World is an adorable life sim that draws inspiration from popular games like The Sims, Animal Crossing, Stardew Valley and Pokemon. You are in charge of your very own little cartoon-looking sim person. Start the game by creating one using a number of customization options (with more to come later!), like hairstyles and color, clothing, and facial attributes. Then, pick out different personality traits like favorite foods and quirks. After that, you’re released into the world of London and set in front of your very dingy new home.
Really dingy. Your fence is broken in spots and the paint is flaking. The front door and windows have seen better days. The appliances in the kitchen are dirty and barely fit to use. At least the furniture looks worn, but comfortable and cozy. Your computer, however, looks like the old dinosaurs from way back when that ran Windows ‘95.
Worry not, though! You receive a meager paycheck from unemployment benefits that you can use to survive and maybe even fix up your new home. Or, you can hop on that ancient computer of yours and search for a new job! Pick from one of five career paths like athlete, culinary, science, journalist, or painter. Detective is also listed, but either isn’t available yet, or I haven’t reached an appropriate milestone to unlock it. Either way, you’ll Start with basic jobs like professional fan, dishwasher, lab cleaner, greeting card wordsmith, and brush washer. As you level up in skills and traits, you’ll be able to earn promotions that will get your better pay. Better pay means better food, clothes, and house decorations!
The City
There isn’t too much to the city just yet, but it’s beautifully drawn and animated. There aren’t any transition screens, either, so moving from one activity or building to another is smooth making it feel like a big open world for you to explore. No waiting on a silly dark screen with a loading bar!
You’ll find several useful stores spread throughout London. Buy groceries needed to cook and level up your cooking skills with. Or trot on over to Simon’s Pub for some spirits and ready made meals. Get furniture from Futon Furniture and flooring or wallpaper from D&Y. Berry’s Electronics has all your appliance needs, while Banana21 Apparel provides for all your clothing needs!
Not in the mood for shopping? Head to the gym to get your sweat on. Or go to the library to relax with a good book that’ll level your skills. Perhaps you need to edit your sim’s profile? Pay the Royal Snail a visit and take care of that real quick. The nearby museum is worth a visit, too. You’ll be able to donate items you’ve found to replenish the exhibits, as well as collect stamps for accomplishments. Throw in cars and busses driving around, as well as other people walking along the sidewalks, and London is full of life and things to do!
Home Design
The design aspect of Little Sim World is super simple. You buy the elements you want from the shops, like wallpaper from D&Y. Then, while at home, you’ll enter the build menu which is laid out in an easy, intuitive manner. There’s a remove tool to not only remove walls and items, but to get some money back for them. You click the design element you want to work with, like wallpaper, and you can click each individual wall you want papered.
Or click and drag to cover the whole room. It’s easy to change whole rooms in this manner. Just be sure you have enough money. Buying the design at the shop merely unlocks the use of it. Placing it costs money too!Placing items is just as easy, too. Select the furniture you want to work with and simply click to place it where you want.
This part of the game is so easy and so simple to learn and do. It was fun designing my sim’s home instead of it being a chore. Switching flooring or rearranging furniture is quick and painless. I can foresee many, many hours spent simply building a fun house.
Sim’s Needs
Little Sim World isn’t just all about the fun shopping sprees and exploring, though. Your sim is essentially a real person. They need to eat, drink, and use the toilet. Bathing is essential to a happy and healthy sim, too. Of course entertainment and exercise needs should be looked after as well.
It’s up to you to fulfill all those needs, and I have to say, that’s a full time job on its own. Maybe it’s because I like to push things instead of balancing my time appropriately, but my sim always feels like it’s starving or needs a shower. Learning to balance my time between working, cooking, having fun, and other needs will take some practice. The challenge is fun, though. It doesn’t feel like a hindrance, but an aspect to rise up to and overcome.
Final Thoughts
Little Sim World has quite a few other game elements that aren’t included in this early version. Finding love, traveling the city via car, bus, or underground, even having a roommate if you want to play with a friend. And if they implement those with the same care and effort as they’ve done with the rest of what’s in the demo, it’ll be excellent! One of the planned additions is the ability to choose Identity attributes. You’ll distribute points among attributes like smart, health, charm, courage, energy, and luck. I suspect these will help determine how well your sim does in their romantic relationships, as well as maybe their job, and overall life.
There is constantly something to do. Care for the sim’s needs, get them to work on time, and fulfilling tasks are all just what’s available in the demo. Add in romance and whatever exciting new features that are planned for Little Sim World, and it’ll be hard to be bored with the game.
As for designing your home and clothing options, the demo has a limited view of each. I imagine Little Sim World will have a much larger variety of everything upon release and I can’t wait. The clothes and design items are already great. I look forward to even more variety for cute or dark aesthetics!
I for one cannot wait for the full release of Little Sim World. It’s bound to be an adorably great time.
Coming Soon!
This lovely little game is projected to come out in the beginning of 2024! You can find it on Steam now to add it to your Wishlist.
Want more reviews? Checkout my review for Ooblets or Roots of Pacha!
- Aug 2, 2023
Moonfrost is an upcoming free-to-play farming sim, and it is beautiful! How you play and where your journey will take you is completely up to you. You’ll start by customizing your very own character. Decide how you want to look, or who it is you want to create, then embark on your big adventure. Meet a growing cast of characters that range from legendary heroes, ancient evils, and lovable souls. Build friendships as well as find someone to fall in love with!
You’ll also have your very own home and farmstead to care for. Build a beautiful house and decorate it to match your tastes. Plant crops, harvest produce, and care for animals. Moonfrost also has fishing and resource gathering. And if you get bored of farming, go on an adventure through an ever-expanding world where you’ll come across secrets and experience the familiar and the fantastical!
Moonfrost is coming to PC and mobile soon.
Looking for more magical farm sims? Check out Fae Farm and Witchbrook.
- Jul 26, 2023
In Millennials, you’ll create your very own college freshman. Experience the prime of your youth while also experiencing the ups and downs of college life. Attend classes, work, make enemies, and forge friendships. Even chill out and decorate your dorm room!
When you create your college freshman in Millennials, you have control over what type of person you make. Choose qualities and skills to create a hard-working bookworm or an extroverted party animal. Make time to network with those around you, as it can make college life more fun. Or go the lone wolf route and avoid making friends at all. Join a sorority or fraternity and take part in mysterious initiations. Even throw parties or arrange annual events. If that doesn’t appeal to you, though, you can join a club or just forge friendships and maybe even find love.
You’ll even have to find the perfect work-life balance while you’re at it! Partying is fun, but you’ll need to attend classes and study in order to pass exams. Mix in working part time to pay for tuition, and you’ll have to manage your time in Millennials really well! Just don’t forget to have fun, because all work and no play is dull. Oh, and don’t forget about your reputation on campus. Network with influential students, complete goals, and accumulate good grades to become a campus celebrity.
Coming Soon
You can Wislist Millennials on Steam now! There is no current release date listed.
Looking for more life sims? Check out Palia, an upcoming cozy MMO. There’s also the adorable Japanese Rural Life.
- Jul 19, 2023
Songs of Glimmerwick is a charming story-driven RPG where you play as a young witch. You’ll be attending the renowned university of magic in the land of Glimmerwick. Complete narrative quests that focus on unique characters and an intriguing story. Attend classes to learn new magic, have fun at bustling festivals, keep an ear out for some juicy drama. Don’t forget to listen out for some mysterious rumors. Learn new skills like talking to frogs, plant crops, and even cast spells using the power of music!
Coming soon to Steam!
- Jun 14, 2023
Welcome to Everdream Valley, an inviting and cozy little piece of the world where your grandparents have a farm. Unfortunately, Grandma and Grandpa went on vacation for a while, and the farm has fallen into disrepair. They need help restoring the farm, and your parents have volunteered you! You’ll get to spend the whole summer with your grandparents, restore the farm, take care of adorable animals, and experience the magic that comes out at night!
An Abundance of Animals
I’m not sure I’ve played a game with quite so many animal options. Stardew Valley has a handful of the barnyard staples, Wylde Flowers has recently added more options, and so on. Everdream Valley, though, has a heavy focus on the animals, and I love it. There are pigs, cows, chickens, horses, ducks, deer, geese, alpacas, sheep, bees, wild boar, magpies, beavers, frogs, beetles, butterflies, mice, snails, and different kinds of fish. Nevermind the different variations of the farm animals. Each one has several different breeds, which makes for a colorful barnyard. Nevermind that they’re round, and you can pet them. You’ll even get to choose from a variety of dog breeds, and have a cute little kitty running around
At the time I played this beautiful game, the only way to get new animals was by visiting the merchant, then pet them to make them follow you, and run to the farm. Chickens you can carry, thankfully, as petting only makes them follow you for a whole 20 seconds.
Pair the 20 second time with the fact that they’re essentially feral unless they’re on your farm with their wooden sign. So they run if the 20 seconds is up, and you need to chase them to pet them again. This mechanic made some of the quests where you fetch critters, well, annoying. However, the Everdream Valley team listened to the constructive criticism and introduced a magic flute that makes animal following SO much easier. Play the flute and they’ll follow. Play the flute again and they stop following.
The Map
The map is HUGE… and lifeless. There are quite a few areas to run around and discover new animals, useful items to grab, and bushes and trees to take back to your orchard. From a beautiful forest, to lush fields, and winding rivers, Everdream Valley has a beautiful atmosphere, but the map is almost too big. You can’t walk through the rivers (which look more like shallow streams), so you’re stuck using a single bridge to access each area past the farm. Unfortunately, the bridges are usually not in a convenient position, so trekking across the map is a time-consuming undertaking. It is nice to just wander around and take in the beauty of nature, though.
That said, things feel a little empty, too. There’s you, Grandma, Grandpa, and the merchant at the farm. That’s all you have to interact with, besides the animals. It makes for a lonely experience, though it does allow you to focus on farming and quests instead of running around to build relationships with people. So, maybe it’s more of a nice little break from the norm.
The Minigames
Every night you dream of a talking scarecrow who shows up with a handy roulette wheel. Spin the wheel to see where your dreams take you. Perhaps you’ll be a duck fighting to get her ducklings in a row, or a goat jumping across an obstacle course, or even your trusty dog defending the farm from thieving wolves.
The way these minigames are used make for an interesting change from the usual. What minigame you play will be different night to night (unless you have bad luck like me), and you can even skip them altogether. You forfeit any rewards you would have gotten from them, but I really enjoy having the option to just not do the minigame when I’m not feeling like completing them. Some of them are a little annoying, too
I’ll admit I’m not the most dexterous gamer, so maybe it’s on me, but I felt like the goat minigame was difficult when simply walking knocked over obstacles, which reset the game. Or the magpie game was difficult to maintain an appropriate flying height without crashing to the ground. My biggest complaint is the wolves not only stealing your sheep if you don’t chase them off in the dream, but they break SO many fences. I dreaded spinning that minigame, but much like the addition of the magic flute, the Everdream Valley team listened and added a mode that made the wolves a lot more lenient.
Final Thoughts
I know I brought up a few issues I had with the game, but overall the game is nice. There’s no pressure to complete quests as soon as possible. Run around and explore, farm, and decorate your treehouse whenever you wish, and complete those quests as you feel like it. And we can’t forget Grandma and Grandpa. Aside from giving out quests, they’re not just there for random conversation. Every morning Grandpa actually gives you crops and animal products they’ve collected, which you’ll need to sell to earn money to buy more animals.
What’s really great about this game is their development team. It’s not a perfect game, but instead of ignoring player feedback, the devs accept it graciously, then actually implement changes. From the magic flute for easier animal following, to the more lenient dream wolves option, Everdream Valley has seen quite a few excellent quality of life changes in their recent update. There’s now object rotation to make decorating easier and better. You can now turn off animal breeding, too, if you’re being overrun by babies. And for those of us who get motion sick, a crosshair has been added to give us a visual anchor for smoother, more enjoyable gameplay.
There’s a LOT of great work going into this game, it seems, and I’m excited to see what new features get added.
Overall, I’d give Everdream Valley
You can find Everdream Valley on Steam and PlayStation, with an upcoming release on Nintendo Switch.
Want more reviews? Check out this Roots of Pacha review, as well as this one on Ooblets.
