Nov 1, 2019Feature
Rolling Hills, a village-sim game created by indie developer Catch & Release, has come a long way and gone through some changes since their previous updates that I covered. To date they’ve revamped their sushi-making interface and added Customer I.D. cards. Their most recent October Patreon post even shows us the latest on the town’s design. With that, I wanted to take a step back and take a look at everything we know about Rolling Hills so far!
In Rolling Hills, your restaurant will be placing dishes on a conveyor belt for your customers. This way, you can load up the belt with tasty dishes, then run outside to take care of other things. This includes: purchasing ingredients, gardening, fishing, interacting with other characters, and beautify the town, all while receiving updates on what’s happening in the restaurant. This doesn’t mean you can neglect your restaurant entirely however, check back to clean dishes, arrange your furniture, and get to know your customers to cater to their needs!
Not only can you now customize your character’s skin color, hair type, and hair color, but now you can also change the appearance of your shoes and apron! Throughout the game you’ll have opportunities to collect cute aprons that you can add to your wardrobe. The developers add: “We think this is a super cool way to customize your character’s outfit while still making sure they remain on theme as a sushi chef.”
Take a look at one of the shop’s interior in Rolling Hills! At the Fresh Market you can purchase ingredients and condiments for use in your restaurant. The store’s inventory changes often so you have to make creative decisions about what to serve your customers with what you have! Prices fluctuate both randomly and based upon what you buy. Meaning, you can’t over-saturate the market and need to keep experimenting with alternative ingredients.
The adorable animals in this unique town are unseen mountain spirits known as muses that grant people the courage to follow their dreams. Your restaurant happens to be in the exact location where their shrine was a thousand years ago, so they mistake the first dish you serve as an offering to them. Help the human characters to reach those dreams by giving them your magically imbued sushi chock-full of bravery!
There’s a lot more description and organization now in creating a new sushi dish. All the individual ingredients are listed as well as the overall quality and price. Your customers have unique personalities and will want very specifics things but also be on a budget.
Whether a customer adores or despises a dish, it’s important to know why. These simple messages are very helpful if you pay attention! With receipts during check-out, you can take another look at which dishes the customers ate and the resulting bonuses received for their favorite dishes, serving them in a timely manner, and their mood based on certain factors like the environment.
One of the things that the developers are working on going forward is exactly how you can make a difference to the score. You can already pick up trash and place it in the recycling bin which will improve the town. Therefore, maybe there will be more mechanics added like this, such as watering flowers. Stay tuned as we learn more about Rolling Hills’ progress and what platforms we can expect (for now it’s probably Steam).
Oct 29, 2019Quick Bits
Lost Ember, created by Mooneye Studios, was announced during this year’s E3 to be releasing this past July 2019. However, during the same month, the developers stated they needed more time to polish the game and rework the story, therefore it will be delayed to a later date. As of October 28th, 2019, we finally get a release date of November 22nd, 2019 for Steam, GOG, Xbox One, PS4, and the Nintendo Switch! See below for the brand new trailer with beautiful graphics and soundtrack, and take a look at those wombats! How cute!
While in Lost Ember your main playable character is the wolf, you can possess any other animal and experience flying, digging, swimming, and climbing! While we wait less than a month to be able to play, let’s look at these confirmed animals with a list, including a fish and a mole! Other animals mentioned are: a tortoise, sloth, mountain goat, parrot, duck, yak, and eagle. For more about the game, you can check out the official website here.
Aug 16, 2019News
The developers of Planet Zoo, Frontier Developments, have just announced details about their new Career Mode which includes a main storyline and several characters with unique personalities. If you haven’t read our last article regarding Zookeepers from their last Developer Journal, you can do so here. We here at myPotatoGames are blown-away by the amount of details and realism the creators are putting into the game which is releasing on PC November 5th, 2019. Frontier Developments assure us that the new Career Mode will be different than what you might be used to if you played their Planet Coaster game. See below for the details on the new mode and the first two new main characters from the latest Dev Post.
In Planet Zoo’s Career Mode, you will go on a trip around the world with new characters, exciting objectives, and lots of decisions that can impact the success of your zoos. There’s a bunch of unique Scenarios that follow along a beautiful and adventurous story, written by Graham Goring – and as it’s part of the Planet universe, there will be loads of light-hearted humour and heart-warming moments!
Each Scenario has its own unique challenges, determined by the continent you’re in, the biome you’re utilizing, the weather, the temperature, and of course animal availability. There will be goals for you to achieve (Bronze, Silver, and Gold), which contain gameplay objectives that vary in difficulty depending on how far you’ve progressed through the story – there’s a lot of unique objectives to get stuck in too! Each Scenario will open up with an introduction to your new surroundings by a character; in the first part of the story, you will mainly be interacting with Bernard “Bernie” Goodwin and Nancy Jones.
Bernard is the owner of several zoos and has made it his life’s work to use them to drive positive change, saving endangered species and increasing animal welfare around the world. He is a warm and humorous character (he loves dad jokes!) who cares deeply for all people and animals alike. He sees the good in almost everyone he meets and wants to inspire others to follow in his path. Despite his age, he has the energy and zest for life of a man twenty years his junior!
Nancy has worked with Bernie for over thirty years and is a no-nonsense woman with a dry sense of humour. Nancy’s first job as a Zookeeper was actually at one of Bernie’s zoos! She’s gotten to where she is through hard work, common sense and passion for her job; a talent Bernard quickly recognized, leading him to promote her to Head Zookeeper – meaning she now leads the teams and expects them to have the same high standards as she does!
Planet Zoo has also recently been nominated for Best Simulation Game at the Gamescom Awards 2019! You can read all about Gamescom and how to watch the live-streams this coming Monday, August 19th, 2019. Frontier Developments say they will be demonstrating their new Career Mode, Gamescom Gameplay Demo, on Tuesday, August 20th, 2019 at 7PM BST on YouTube. Sandbox Mode is always fun and the best way to get super creative but we can’t wait to find out what kind of goals there will be for our zoos!
Aug 15, 2019Feature
If you haven’t yet heard of Garden Paws, it’s a farming simulation RPG created by Canadian indie developers Bitten Toast Games. We here at myPotatoGames have been playing the game on Steam but you’ll also be able to play the content-complete version on the Nintendo Switch December 2019. This game has been one of our favorites this year if you want to check out our previous review.
We’ve given you a list of tips for beginners, and now we’d like to share with you all of the Easter Egg locations in the town of Florens, including screenshots. Spring will be the first season you start with and every single year on Spring 15, Ester comes to town with the most amazing of prizes! If you’ve played through several years, like us, and get excited every time Spring comes along but you can’t quite find all of the eggs, well this is the guide for you! However, if you haven’t unlocked every new villager in Florens so far, know that there may be spoilers ahead.
If you want to try and find them on your own, you have until the end of Spring to do so but know that if you find all 20 eggs before, Ester will give you a bonus 10 Tickets! You’ll also want to do this all in a day or two as there is no indicator of which egg you found and haven’t yet found. There is an in-game achievement tracker but it only displays the amount you’ve found. Keep all of the eggs in your inventory (which you’ll probably need to expand at least once) and open all of your eggs at the same time.
Some eggs are rarer than others and will contain better randomized prizes as well as some Tickets. These prizes alone are worth the effort but on top of that, once you’ve collected enough Tickets, you can trade for select Easter-related prizes. You’ll probably need to save up and try again next year for the bigger prizes. Now onto the hidden Easter Egg locations!
Now you’ve found all of the Easter Eggs in Garden Paws! The prizes range in Ticket prices (10, 25, 75, etc) for the following items: several skins for your character, different colored bunnies (i.e. purple) for your habitats, balloons you can hold or use as decoration, decorated egg-shaped storage items, an egg tree, a bird bath, a large egg centerpiece, several aprons and crowns/hats, and a large blue flower fountain.
We hope this guide was helpful to you and if you have any questions, please feel free to leave us a comment! Next time we’ll be making a post about the newly added Summer Festival which includes several mini-games and summer prizes! Save up your coins because you’re going to need them!
Aug 9, 2019News
Quench is a story-driven puzzle game set in a colorful world. Help an adorable elephant to guide herds of animals while using the weather to your advantage. Quench is developed by Axon Interactive Inc., an indie studio based in Ontario, Canada. As of August 7th, 2019, you can purchase the game at the following locations: Nintendo Switch (North America), Nintendo Switch (Europe), Steam, and itch.io. Find out more about the game below and how you can help bring clean water to a community in need IRL.
Axon Interactive Inc. has announced on their Steam page the following: “We are proud to announce that $1 from all sales in the month of August will be donated to charity: water, an international non-for-profit organization whose mission is to bring clean and safe drinking water to people in developing countries. Up to $10,000 will be raised to fund a water project for a community in need, with real-time progress reported back to all players. We’re super excited to see what we can all make happen together.”
Become Shepherd, an avatar of nature, and guide herds of animals on a perilous journey. Each generation, the Elephant Tribe makes a grand pilgrimage. But this time, something is different… Help Shaman, the young Elephant leader, convince the other animal tribes to join her. Protect your herds as they are beset by flood, fire, drought, and the dark smokebeasts that have spread across the land. Control the environment to guide herds of animals and restore their home in this colourful narrative puzzle game!
For another great game with a great real-life cause, check out our article here: To The Rescue: A Little Help For Our Friends. Moreover, you can still make a pledge on their Kickstarter, which has officially been a success and now aiming for their stretch goals. Know that 20% of the profits of the game will go toward actual dog shelters!
Jun 26, 2019News
Garden Paws is a farming simulation game where you can grow crops, run your own shop, tame animals, rebuild the town, go spelunking in the caves, and much more. You can get all the details about the game in our previous article here. We here at myPotatoGames wanted to catch you up on what we think are the most exciting new features. This includes one of our favorite mythical creatures, unicorns, which have been added as a legendary mount. If you thought being an animal yourself was cute enough, well now you can tame and have more pet animals on your farm as well!
You can now tame every animal that you see and give them a home on your farm which will yield rewards. Newer animals have also been added along with the capability of feeding them their favorite food which is displayed above their heads.
Let’s start with the Fox. The Fox can be found in the forest area and can be tamed with Small Fish. You need to pick up a Forest Animal Habitat from Roman the Blueprint Vendor and give the fox a nice home for it to stay with you. Once you have the fox tamed you can visit it every day to collect some fish, or some poop.
Next up, the Ferrets! The Ferrets are something Kristina, the designer of the game, really wanted to add since she grew up with them. Simply purchase the Ferret Habitat and grab some wool and you can head off to start taming these little ones. The ferrets can be found on one of the southern islands, or in the ruins. Once you’ve got them tamed they’ll collect all Fiber, Wool, Fur, Feathers and Eggs in the area!
Last but not least, the Dung Beetles! Once you have collected 100 poop you’ll be able to build a Dung Beetle Habitat (it’s stinking cute!) and craft some Beetle Feed. Beetles tamed and in their habitat will start collecting all the poop within the area the next day! The beetles come in 6 color variations, and if you choose to pursue the Beetle Mania achievement and tame 100 beetles, the Legendary Beetle will have a chance to spawn! This Gold Legendary Beetle is even a mount and can be ridden around the map!
The unicorn has a 1% chance to spawn every day, when you see the rainbow you’ll know it’s out there, somewhere. However, you’ll only be able to tame the unicorn when you have some Legendary Feed. You can get that by activating another Legendary to spawn. (Don’t worry the fastest legendary to trigger is just by collecting 100 poop.) The Unicorn, like all legendary creatures, is a little bit faster than regular mounts and a little more legendary.
Kahuna Chicken and Big Bunny can be found roaming the islands. Once you prove your worth as a tamer of that animal type that is, you’ll be able to find them in the wild. Certain achievements also have to be met.
A buildable barn has been added in this most recent update and therefore you can now raise more animals! You’ll receive the blueprint in the mail your first winter and start building barns that hold up to 4 animals! If you need some Hay there’s a blueprint for a Drying Rack to turn Tall Grass into Hay. Same goes for the coops so you can house more Legendary Chickens! Once you build the max level coop you’ll receive a Chicken Coop Blueprint to start building your own coops. Each coop will hold 6 Chickens or Ducks, and you can build as many of them as you’d like.
To test out this new feature, the developers held many socials for their community online such as dance parties and trampoline jump puzzles. Now that Garden Paws has larger server sizes, you can do your own 10 Player Creative Server. In Creative Mode, you’ll instantly unlock all the items and you are able to build anywhere and everywhere. There’s no town and no quests, just room for you to roam.
Garden Paws has 2 new furniture sets amounting to over 30+ new items between them. The Heverli Set includes: a hot tub, beach umbrella, lounge chairs and a canopy. The Crystal Garden Set, which has lots of intertwining wood pieces decorated with leaves and crystals, is to give you an enchanted forest vibe.
With the new Seed Bundle Station, you can now combine 4 seeds and 1 Fertilizer to create a Large Seed Bundle. When planting this seed bundle you’ll notice it looks a little bit larger than other crops. This Super Crop will yield a seed when harvesting, and you’ll have a chance to find a Seed Mystery Box.
There are still many more additions to the game as it continues to receive large updates every couple of weeks or so. If you want the full low-down you can check out Bitten Toast Games’ Steam updates and news here.
Jun 17, 2019Interviews
Elliot & Ko is a Paper Mario inspired game about cute animal friends exploring! This slice-of-life platforming game is about interacting with many areas each with their own lovable anthropomorphic animals to meet and puzzles to solve. The sole developer is Jacob, with the help of Angel who has done some wonderful concept art and designs for the characters and the architecture. The game is still in very early development but is planned for PC and mobile on both iOS and Android.
We here at myPotatoGames would like to thank Jacob for taking the time to answers our many questions about Elliot & Ko and we are very excited to share everything with you down below!
Play as Elliot, accompanied by Ko, and meet new friends along your journey. Some characters are sassy, some are anxious, some neurotic, but all tend to be charming and friendly (in their own right), and always ready to chat. There’s a big focus on interactions and dialog so you’ll really enjoy talking to these quirky villagers.
Elliot: a sleepy sheep boy. They recently learned to count to 50, enjoys 12-hour naps, and is a little too hard on themselves.
Ko: a frosty deer that loves the cold (see t-shirt), relaxing, and eating food. He tends to be very quiet but certainly isn’t unfriendly!
Nettles: the cutest little bird witch around. She has too many plants, makes plans and immediately forgets about them, is a huge nerd, and wants you to like her boots and books.
Lily: a precious little frog that loves to skip around. More will be revealed about her at a later date.
Milk: loves Boba tea and growing her little garden. She grew up rather sheltered and became materialistic. However, she wants a chance to change and leave behind the boring daily grinds of the city.
In the prologue, you are in an ‘origami ocean’ in a lovely papercraft boat sailing toward the main town to the east. During this time, you will be given small challenges and taught the basics of controls, mechanics, and turn-based battles. When you reach the dock, you’ll enter the hub world. This Victorian area is a sophisticated town in beautiful pastel colors where posh aristo-cats live. Jacob continues to narrate the intro: “Its residents all take to the two little explorers quite quickly, if not in kindness at least in attention. Various interactions with the townspeople will set off plots and (side)quests throughout the game, including setting the first chapter in motion with the sprawling, dark, industrialized metropolis hidden beneath, unseen and unheard, an unspoken secret. Surely it’s nothing sinister, but a sign that the perfection and high society whimsical life above is not without its costs.“
Among the other residents, in the pastel town you will meet Meringue; a lazy cat that picks fights with the sailor rabbit down by the harbor. You’ll also meet his sister Muffin who owns her own little bakery. They are both very sassy and very rich.
This industrialized metropolis has very glamorous and large skyscrapers, with a heavy cyberpunk theme. Elliot and Ko quickly discover that many of the little workers here seem overworked.
There are currently two other worlds with two more chapters that Jacob is working on: a train that will lead you through a western canyon and directly into space, and a little snow-covered village. This mysterious and naturalistic town houses spirits and hidden ruins. The people that you will meet here aren’t immediately willing or able to speak with you. Below you’ll see images of the area-in-progress with snowflakes, steps made of ice, and northern lights.
When you meet Lily, Nettles, and Milk, they will join you on your adventure and even in battle. You can choose your own party of three at all times. Each party member will have their own unique abilities. Re-enter past areas or keep checking out the hub world to discover new ways to use your partners’ abilities and gain access to new areas you weren’t able to reach before. Don’t forget to frequently speak to all of the NPCs for quests and other things to do, as well as shopping for supplies. These items include crafting materials and new abilities. You can also forage for items or receive them from enemy-drops.
Jacob emphasizes that the battles themselves will not be either repetitive nor a grind. You’ll be able to do microgames to pull off special moves and therefore should be plenty unique, fun, and engaging. Each battle may even have different conditions to fulfill. If enemy drops are wearing you down, the developer plans on creating cute little couriers that are more than willing to come and fetch any excess baggage you may want dropped off back in town. Jacob says he plans on having these couriers be adorable little puppies that come to you by parachute.
To learn more about Elliot & Ko’s development and progress, you can follow along on Twitter here and the Discord channel here. We wish Jacob all the best and can’t wait for the finished product of this adorable game and sweet/charming art style.
Jun 4, 2019News
Éloïse Laroche has posted another devlog update on Steam with great new features! She’s the sole developer behind Alchemy Story, an adorable farming simulation game. If you missed our early demo summary and gameplay footage of Alchemy Story, you can catch up with us right here. To remind you, all the villagers have been turned into animals and it is up to you to turn them human again with a little bit of alchemy. Below you’ll find a summary of the 4th character added to the game which also means you get a new area and a new item.
A new character has been added to the village, but she’ll remain an animal until you help her out! Penelope is a skilled miner that will help you to explore the mines. Once you help her remember who she is, she’ll sell you hammers, minecarts, and different ores everyday.
Much like the forest area that you unlock thanks to Jasmine, the mines are an entirely new area you can explore and get new items from. The developer plans to add secret areas and more quests in the mine later on in development of the game.
Gather stone, coal, silver, gold, sapphire and ruby from these boulders! Those items will be useful either as building materials, to fuel furnaces and ovens, to brew potions, or to trade in exchange of coins.
To progress in the mine, you’ll need to fuel your furnace. Different ingredients such as wood, coal, and maple leaves can be used as fuel.
You can buy up to six different minecarts, one for each type of ore. Each one will allow you to carry more of that item in your inventory. As always, the developer is skilled at making anything look adorable, even minecarts. Also, what a creative and visually-pleasing way to show what you are carrying in your inventory!
This new tool can be upgraded up to four times in Penelope’s shop to spend less energy breaking rocks! Again, you’ll have access to these hammers once you encounter Penelope and complete some tasks.
Along with this newest update there were also a few bug fixes. Stay tuned for more on this game with myPotatoGames as we continue to keep an eye on the development of Alchemy Story. Want to catch up on other updates? Check out our article on Equilinox here, a relaxing nature simulation game.