All posts tagged in Life Simulation
Aug 21, 2024
Snacko is a super adorable farming sim where you and your friend venture to Snacko Island in search of a new life away from the hustle and bustle of the city. When you arrive, you find the island a little run down and empty. In fact, there’s only one resident who’s kind enough to get you settled into a new home. From there, it’s up to you to restore the town and the rest of the island. It’s not just some island, though. It features a deep, rich past full of mystery that you also get to discover!
Run around the idyllic island collecting resources, fishing, exploring, and farming. There are 4 distinct biomes for you to traverse, each with their own unique items to collect, plus 4 different shrines to encounter. You can fish up over 20 different types of fish across the island, as well as grow 12 crops and raise cows and chickens for produce. Then, restore the town! Use resources to rebuild the ruins of buildings. Set up a grocery store and other shops to revive the scene. Invite different characters to join you on the island, too. Those shops will need workers and people to sell to! There are 20+ different NPCs you can encounter, and a system in place to make re-inviting villagers easier so you can befriend everyone!
Quests and Villager Overhaul
There’s already some great stuff in Snacko. Being able to save during the day and sleeping wherever you can using beds and sleeping boxes you’ve placed. Talk about stress-free exploring! Of course, there’s a ton more in this lovely little game, but an upcoming update promises some equally exciting things. Buckle up for a lot of improvements and changes!
First up is the restriction on villagers. You can now have everyone all at once! The blueprint shop and other recipes are no longer all unlocked at the beginning. MIAO will act more like a guide, nudging you in the right direction of progression instead of unlocking everything. In fact, there’s now quests you must complete to unlock them. Some of these unlocks happen through Guild quests. However, you’ll encounter several different ways to unlock new dye recipes, cooking recipes, and crafting recipes. Of course, the Guild function is brand new too! Each Guild has its own representative(s) that possess their own personalities and will communicate with you through quests and deliveries. Some of the reps even have mini story arcs for you to experience.
Villager quests have also been overhauled in Snacko, and there are new ones added to the mix. These quests will unlock recipes like Guild quests, but also unlock new shop items. Plus, you can get to know your villagers more through these questlines! Villager dialogue pools have also been overhauled to make more sense and give you a chance to see them all. For example, Rejka will no longer be confused when you speak to him in the morning while dating. The idea is to move away from the mundane cycle of talking, gifting, and repeating to build a relationship. The developers want to give you more options to build your bonds, which is great!
UI Changes and More
There have been some UI changes for expanded dark mode, which includes a new quest and UI to accompany it. Dark mode has been expanded beyond the dialogue boxes, which is great for those of us who prefer less brightness. Dark mode tones down some of the bright green grasses and shiny blue waters. And I think the developers achieved a great balance without sacrificing the beauty of their art and color palettes!
Crafting recipes can now be tracked on the Snacko HUD just like quests. No more second guessing what you just read or keeping a thousand sticky notes all over your desk like me. Simply track the crafting recipe like you would a quest for better efficiency. You can even pin the recipe to match the quantity of items you want to craft. So, if you want to make 3 softwood lampposts, pin the recipe for 3 to track the total resources needed. You can also buy basic resources from the shops after they’re closed now, too.
Now you can charge your sword into a dash function. The dash can be used mid-air to achieve a type of pseudo flying. The distance you travel is dependent on the charge amount, but if you string smaller dashes together, you’ll stay airborne. The pickaxe can bounce you around, too. When you’re mid-air, like from a jump, you can use the charged pickaxe to bounce off things like cliffs. So, fly around or bounce around town for a fun new way to travel!
Release Date
This Town & Guild Update for Snacko is live now! So, hop on and get familiar with all these cool new features! You can find this absolutely adorable game on Steam.
- Aug 8, 2024
Celebrate the small moments in life with The Garden Path, a slice-of-life gardening sim developed by carrotcake. Designed to be picked up and played in short bursts, the game uses a mix of both real-world time and in-game calendar. Each game day follows the 24-hour cycle, but you’ll also get to see all four seasons within 28 real-world days.
Enjoy unique hand-drawn art as you wander around the garden choosing how you play each time. Meet a unique cast of vegetable-headed visitors that may become your neighbors. Then, complete tasks for them to grow your bond, and even compete in games against them. You’ll also get to encounter a traveling troupe who come and go, plus traveling merchants will appear with useful seeds, decor, and tools.
The Garden Path features some excellent original music, too. So, it’s easy to get caught up in the relaxing sounds and beautiful sights of your garden. You can even play with a second player with local co-op!
Release Date
You can find The Garden Path on Steam now!
- Jul 25, 2024
If you’re unfamiliar with the excellent Roots of Pacha, developed by Soda Den, it’s a beautifully designed farming sim set in the stone age. Play as your own customized character as you help your community and farm precious crops and raise adorable animals. Take some time to fish, gather resources, and learn new ideas to make life easier. Get to know your fellow tribesmen and work together with them to improve the tribe. The survival of your people hinges on teamwork, but making friends and falling in love can be just as important! Even explore the mysteries the world has to offer. You may even find some new powers that will help you in your journeys.
The 1.2 Update
Here in just a few short weeks you’ll be able to experience the excitement of the 1.2 update, too. This update adds more perks to bonding with pets. They will fetch items from different areas of the map, like red meat or herbs. You can even choose a pet to become a trusty mount so you can glide across the landscapes and reach destinations faster! Then there’s the new watering system. Early on, you can discover the idea for the “olla”. The olla is a pot that sits in a hole in the ground and can be filled with water. It will then water the surrounding 8 plants for up to two days before needing a refill. This early idea makes running your farm much more efficient sooner than before.
The Roots of Pacha update also adds in some new features for your children, making them far more interesting. A school is a new idea that lets you send your toddler off to learn skills. Enrolling a child in school also allows them to grow into school-age kids and become active members of the tribe. They’ll hang around the village and have unique dialogue interactions now. Plus, you can dress them in new clothing sets, change their hairstyles and hair color, and see them at festivals. Building the school also unlocks learning stations that will have your children do various chores around the farm. So, this update turns your children from just an event to experience into useful new NPCs!
The 1.2 update doesn’t stop there, though. Enjoy two new locations union ceremonies, plus you can kiss your partner. Once they move in, they’ll get up in the morning when you do so you can chat with them before heading out for a long day of exploring or farming, and they’ll have new dialogue. Or if you prefer not to date anyone and don’t want to sit through romantic cutscenes where the NPCs confess their feelings, you can turn that off! The setting will be located in Settings>Gameplay and can be turned off at any point in the game. You will also have the opportunity to save the game at any time instead of being forced to finish a day and sleep through the night to save. And then there will be several QoL changes to help make the game even more enjoyable and fun for you!
Release Date
The Roots of Pacha 1.2 Update is releasing July 31st on Steam, PlayStation, and Nintendo Switch. However, that isn’t the only big news, as it’s also releasing on Xbox consoles the very same day! So, if you haven’t played the game yet, or are a returning player, there’s no time like now to start a new save!
- Jul 4, 2024
Princess Maker 2 is a classic simulation game where you play as a father who raises a beautiful daughter the stars gifted you. Raise your little girl over the span of eight years. She grows from a sweet ten year old child into a lovely eighteen year old woman. Her dream in life is to become a princess, but you’ll need to choose correctly and raise her right!
The Remaster
The charming Princess Maker franchise kickstarted the social simulation genre all the way back in 1991. Only a few years after that was Princess Maker 2 released for the first time. Now, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the sequel, a remastered version of the game is releasing. Princess Maker 2: Regeneration is a lovingly updated release. This redone version features some great new updates to bring the classic into the modern gaming sphere.
Princess Maker 2: Regeneration has beautifully redrawn animations with high resolution. Takami Akai, the original designer of the franchise, redrew several scenes. Additionally, these redraws are in a similar style to the PC-98 version to keep the original charm. This includes a remastered ending and also vacation art. Plus, there’s a brand new opening animation by Yonago Gainax to get you into the excellent raising sim’s story. There’s been a great improvement to the English localization.
So, the remastered version is the perfect opportunity for new and old players!
Release Date
Princess Maker 2: Regeneration releases on Steam, Nintendo Switch, and PlayStation July 10th! You can add the game to your Steam Wishlist to be notified of its release, too.
Mushroom Musume is another cute daughter raising sim.
- Jul 3, 2024
Daomei Village by developer Gameparic is a charming pixel art farming and life sim with a more low-key color palette perfect for the setting. After committing a crime, you have been ordered by the emperor to restore Daomei Village. It was once a lovely little place that has now fallen into disrepair. Of course, nothing comes free! The emperor still demands you pay taxes, and the tax collector will be sure to come collecting. So, turn your farmland into a profitable space in order to generate the income needed to pay your taxes.
Start your new life with some really simple tools, 100 yuan, and a few seeds. Turn your new, run down farm into an income generator through hard work and care. Cultivate your fields to grow crops to sell. Grow different vegetables and flowers depending on the season. Take care of different types of animals, too. Each species requires their own dedicated spaces, so you’ll need to build pens that suit each one! You even get to breed the animals to help generate more income. As you get richer, you can implement automation to make your farming process even smoother!
Steeped in Chinese folklore and architecture, Daomei Village is a beautifully designed game that immerses you in Chinese culture and demonology. You even get to see glimpses of previous dynasties as you explore the game. As you explore the village, get to know your neighbors. Each one is there because they’ve committed some type of crime. Get to know them and help them with tasks to earn their trust and learn what their crimes are.
As you work hard to rebuild the village and increase the happiness of the villagers, you’ll be able to set out on adventures with the blessing of the emperor. These excursions take place in enemy lands occupied by the imperial army. There, you’ll face different challenges and combat situations, but you’ll also be greatly rewarded with new technology, seeds, and materials to further improve the village. The harder the challenge, the greater the reward!
Release Date
You can find Daomei Village listed on Steam, where you can add it to your Wishlist. There’s also a demo available for you to try. The game is set to release later this year!
Tales of Seikyuu is a another wonderful farm sim that sets you in a more unusual setting!
- Jun 29, 2024
Sunrise’s Order by Misstic Studio is a super cozy and adorable farming sim that pulls inspiration from great games like Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley. You landed yourself in some hot water with your job after losing track of time and binging a brand new farming sim game. The game was just way too fun and you lost track of time! You decide in the moment you’re ready for a change of pace, anyway, and would love to live out the farming life in real life. So, you sell your things and buy an island to start your new dream!
While an exciting new adventure to face, buying an uninhabited island and taking up farming doesn’t come without its challenges. With some cheeky humor and hard work, you can turn your island into a paradise, though. You’ll have to rely on a delivery service to get your seeds and tools! In Sunrise’s Order, you’ll utilize the extremely useful Animazon for all your needs.
Buy starter tools, start farming with seeds you order, and unlock more items for farming, decor, and crafting as you progress through the game. Animazon will be an unimaginable help for turning your simple home into a flourishing farmstead! The builder app on your computer will let you expand your farm, too, but clearing out and claiming new parcels of land across the cozy, quiet island.
Income
Your main source of income will be from fulfilling customer orders. Of course, you can sell the items you gather or the fish up, but you’ll make more of a profit completing orders. Use the wood, stone, ore, crops, and whatever else you can grow or find to craft items that customers need. Set up different workstations to craft items a variety of things. Catch fish and grill them up.
Grow food crops and flowers. Or even craft decorative items to beautify your home with or to sell. Fulfilling customer orders will help you unlock even more workstations to upgrade your crafting skills and abilities, too. So, the more orders you fulfill, the more money you make, and the more you progress!
Skill Progression
Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of Sunrise’s Order is that there’s a dedicated skill tree and development progression. As you complete chores around the island, you’ll earn experience points that level up individual things (ex: each crop has levels; foraging, fishing, and wood cutting do too). Leveling up these things levels up your farm.
You earn a skill point each time the farm gains a level, and you can spend that skill point on useful things like more stamina, receiving more wood when you chop trees, and lowering the amount of stamina used during an activity. The development progression lets you unlock a bigger house, animals, and much more. It all gives the game a great sense of direction without strong-arming you into specific cutscenes or storylines.
Where to Find It
You can find Sunrise’s Order on Steam now! There’s even a demo to try out first, but if you really like farming without the pressure of being social, this game is perfect for you!
- Jun 12, 2024
Thank you to Pixeduo Studios and Crytivo for the copy!
The solo developer at Pixeduo Studios describe To Pixelia as the “ultimate” life sim. It is an extremely robust entry into the life sim genre, too. The game starts as you arrive in the city of Pixelia. You’ve traded your life in some unknown town for the hustle and bustle of the city. Create your story on your own terms through carefully crafting your character. Choose hairstyle and color, clothing to wear, and even personality traits that will play a role in the game.
You need to care for your character’s needs through food and drinks, using the toilet, bathing regularly, sleeping, and even entertaining them through different activities. Buy or rent property and decorate it how you like. Start your To Pixelia life with a basic job and work your way up the ladder towards your dream career. Engage in different hobbies for fun, and drive around on a fun motorcycle or in a cool car. Cook meals, fight your rivals, and so much more!
The Ultimate Life Sim
The open-world nature of the game makes for a fun time exploring. You aren’t limited to just a few areas, but instead have a wide, open city. Fill in your map by visiting each of the available shops and businesses and see what all there is to do. Grab wallpaper and floor tiles to redecorate with, buy groceries from the market, cheese store, and butcher, and even buy a motorcycle or car to make getting around easier. There’s a gym, music store, recording studio, florist, basketball courts, library, academy, internet cafe, casino, and SO many more places. It’s easy to get lost without using the map, but it’s so hard to get bored in a place like Pixelia.
And like many life sims, you do need to care for your character’s needs, or they’ll refuse to accomplish anything. Grab slices of pizza from the pizza cart, or perhaps a steak dinner from the restaurant would satisfy you more. Of course, To Pixelia gives you the option to buy ingredients and make different recipes too. Not only do you get a satisfying homemade meal, but you get to increase your cooking skills too! Make sure you bathe regularly, too, and entertain your character with dancing or other leisure activities. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, right?
What to Do For Fun
As for the fun stuff, you can visit the casino to play some games. Perhaps you’ll win some money, or perhaps you’ll run into a streak of bad luck and lose some money. Visit the nightclub in the unsavory portion of town to engage in some dancing fun. Maybe even head over to the shops and pick up some stuff to grow your own plants in your apartment. Walk around the city talking to everyone you meet to build friendships and even get close to someone in preparation for when marriage is added to the game. There’s even pets you can get so you have that fluffy companion to come home to every day. Or take a reckless drive around town on your hot new motorcycle, unless you prefer a sleek car instead. Both are available for purchase.
Careers
Not only are there a great many different features in To Pixelia, each of those features is incredibly in-depth. The jobs and careers portion is probably my favorite of any game. Start by visiting the Job Office to apply for a starter job. There is only one to begin with, waiting tables, but there are a couple more options later on. Starter jobs don’t require any specific skills, so are perfect for just earning income to pay bills. The best part is the jobs don’t take place off-screen or in a cutscene. You actually do them! To wait tables, you wait for orders, relay them to the chef, then deliver the orders to each person. The cleaning job at the hotel entails walking up to each dirty spot and sweeping or wiping it up. The experience is far more engaging and rewarding than having it happen off screen!
However, you won’t be stuck waiting tables or cleaning the hotel forever. You also get to choose a dream career to work towards. Choose to become a business guru, renowned artist, rockstar, elite fighter, basketball star, bestselling author, supermodel, family person, the president, or even a criminal mastermind. As you live your life balancing work and leisure, you can also take time to fulfill tasks that level up your dream career path. For example, I chose the bestselling author path, and I can spend time reading books on writing and practicing writing in order to hone my craft. Practice makes perfect after all!
Home Design
You start out with a super dingy, fairly small apartment, but it’s not your forever home. In fact, To Pixelia has several different apartment options for you to rent or buy. And you can decorate each one! Grab some fun wallpaper and floor tiles to match to give the place a makeover. Add some necessary furniture to meet your character’s needs. Then, throw in some accessories to make the place feel more like home. Rugs will brighten up a room or help give it some depth. Outfit the kitchen with an oven and fridge so you can get down to business cooking, but don’t forget the microwave for easy reheating! Even make room for a computer and hobby items like a guitar or keyboard. Get creative with your decorating to turn your apartment from a place to simply live into a place to enjoy.
You can find To Pixelia listed on Steam now! Go ahead and Wishlist the game so you get notified when it releases. Which, it’s set to release later this year!
- Jun 7, 2024
Little Sim World is an adorable upcoming cozy sim that has been in development for several years now. Taking place in the center of London, this little life sim is more than just a game where you care for a person, but it’s an opportunity to shape that person and influence their story! Move into your rustic little home in the heart of London and take time to explore, work, collect items, decorate, and so much more. This game is packed full of all the sim features you could possibly want to create an exciting and engaging experience.
Kickstarter Now Live
Now you have a chance to help Little Sim World by supporting their Kickstarter, which just launched today June 7th! There are an immeasurable number of games out there, but this one deserves the support from interested gamers so it can deliver all of the content that’s been promised. And the developer Blue Gravity Studios has already done some incredible work delivering on promised content so far!
Start your new sim life by fully customizing your character with hair types, hair colors, clothing, and personality traits. Start your new life by moving into a rustic, cozy home, but visit the local DIY shop to buy stuff for house upgrades. Also explore a bustling piece of the city where you’ll find shops, NPCs, and even vehicle traffic. Stop in the gym to get your sweat on, or run around collecting coins to donate to the museum. There’s even fishing to be done in Little Sim World. Visit the quaint Grosvenor Canal to catch all kinds of fish. Or go chill at the library to read and learn something new. Perhaps even fall in love? The opportunities are nearly endless.
Every day isn’t all fun and games, though! You must manage your character’s needs for food, water, hygiene, even entertainment and comfort. Plus, a job is necessary to obtain funds for your decorating endeavors and expenses. So you must learn to balance everything well in order to achieve success, but this offers a truly excellent life sim experience. Never mind that the game’s visuals are absolutely charming and adorable. Throw in the dynamic weather and different seasonal changes, Little Sim World has a lot to offer and is well-worth backing on Kickstarter!
Release Date
Again, the Kickstarter for this great sim game launches June 5th. There’s also a Steam page that lists the release date for the game later this year!
Kickstarter is Now Live!
You can help developers unlock even more features by supporting their Kickstarter right here.
