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 21, 2019News
Rolling Hills is a friendly life sim about opening your own sushi restaurant in a cozy little village. The game is created by an indie developer called Catch & Release which also made Star Billions: A Sci-Fi Adventure for mobile and Cold Iron for Steam and PlayStation Store.
Rolling Hills is still in very early development but is estimated for a release sometime in 2020 for as many platforms as possible, although they are a small team. I am really looking forward to this game coming out as it’s reminiscent of Animal Crossing but with sushi!
For more updates on this game you can follow the developers on Twitter here and their Discord channel here.
For more details, some gameplay footage and more information on Rolling Hills, check out the latest updates on the sushi creation and a first look at the cozy little town!
To get the latest and fullest scoop of Rolling Hills news check out our designated news area for this game right here!
Aug 31, 2019News
It’s that time again; Robert Tatnell, the sole developer behind Hokko Life, has posted his Devlog for the month of July, 2019. Meaning, we have more information on how the progress of the game is going and what are some newly added features. For the last Devlog go here, to learn more about this adorable village life-sim go to our interview here. Besides changes to the UI, cleaner designs tools and menus, and online features, you’ll see below some exciting new details have been added that we find will make our experience of playing Hokko Life just that much better!
Now that Robert has started to implement a farming system into the game, we get a look at some new crops that have been added; cabbages and radishes! Since a weather mechanic was added last update, rain can now water these crops. May we also add that those new headphone accessories on the characters are looking mighty fine.
We agree that in any game where you have to pick up several items one by one, especially after tedious tasks like cutting down trees or mining for ores, it can be quite tiresome to stand still and press an action button every time. Therefore, when Robert mentions that he added an “auto-pickup” feature, it’s a bigger deal than it sounds. Now “players automatically collect anything they walk over, if they have backpack space.”
Finally, we specifically wanted to show just how adorable the new characters vs. characters and player vs. characters greetings are. When automatic messages pop up along with a little waving gesture, it just makes the game feel more alive and fun. Especially when those greetings will change depending on time of day and the weather. Furthermore, if you don’t like these characters, just give them the boot from their homes! We’re not saying we’d ever do that.
If you want t help support Robert and Hokko Life, you can go to his Patreon page here.
Jun 4, 2019News
Indie games are more often than not the hidden gems of gaming and Lil Tribals makes no exception. This indie title is all about making friends, building a community and creating your own village.
Lil Tribals is created by a tiny indie studio which consists of three passionate developers, Jesse Toyota, Jenny Luu and Shirley Tong. The indie title follows Bumi and Jamu who were left by themselves after a disaster struck that destroyed the surrounding villages. The two friends then decided to start building a whole new village to welcome all the people affected by the event.
This is where the story starts off and the player will have to create a whole new village for other characters to find a new home. You will need to gather resources and play a new village, that will hopefully become the new sanctuary for many new villagers to be recruited along the way.
The indie game already features many activities such as collecting resources, building, and even painting you very own tribal mask, a feature that reminds us of the clothing creation/painting tool in Animal Crossing: New Leaf – something we can pour hours into!
Lil Tribals is currently in Alpha, which is an early stage in the games development cycle. Many new features will be added going forward, and bugs can still be expected to be part of the game at this point. The developers have already made an early version available which you can start playing for free on PC today. The game also supports (and recommends) the use of a controller. Check out the cutesie gameplay trailer below and make sure to follow the developers on Twitter to stay up to date on Lil Tribals!
After disaster struck the surrounding villages, the tribes were left without homes and searching for shelter. While searching for a new home, Bumi and Jamu discover a deserted campsite. Instead of leaving, they decide to start a new village, welcoming all the villagers without homes. It will take a lot of work, but maybe one day their little village will become something great.
A 3rd person village management game with city building, survival, and social elements. The game is currently in alpha, but provides the player with the core concepts:
For more simulation fun, check out Snacko and the latest on the cat-tastic game!
Dec 17, 2018Animal Crossing
The amount of insults and passive-aggressive comments that can be found within Animal Crossing games is pretty surprising, considering that the franchise is marketed mostly at children (although all of us don’t care ????).
The older Animal Crossing games are especially notorious for rude and insulting characters. While recent Animal Crossing games have seen ‘levels of savagery toned down’, the games still contain plenty of banter, emotions, and insults to keep game play interesting.
Here are ten examples that addequately demonstrate just how savage a seemingly cute and innocent game can be.