I'd never miss an opportunity to talk about the games I love, so here's a different game for each major question:
1. What are some of my favorite games, and why? (Stardew Valley)
Stardew Valley isn't my favorite game by a long shot, but it's relevant and isn't mentioned elsewhere. The Seasons changing is nice, the multiple events across each season add a lot of character, and the way the world can slowly be shaped by the player, but never completely, is really cool. Above all else the ability to almost entirely customize the farm with outdoor spaces and have a really cozy hub of operations is what makes it most playable to me. The dating simulator part of it seems like a side compared to the sandbox parts. The last time I played Stardew Valley was with the Sword and Sorcery mod, which was super cool because the crops in that mod altered the crops around them, either by acting as a sprinkler, fertilizer, allowing giant crops to appear more, or other effects. It also had a large emphasis on combat, which it did a bit poorly by making it stupidly hard with massive enemy stats but otherwise easy enemy mechanics. With all of Stardew's intricate mechanics, my favorite was easily the base-building. No matter what villager I upset, I always had a cozy home base to return to.
2. What makes me curious in a game? (The Forest of Love)
- An entirely new alphabet used just for the game. I've also seen this done in Wynncraft with its Ancient Wynnic. When the translation guide is eventually found in game, it is fun to go back to mysteries which had the language in order to translate what was said.
- Seeing something that cannot be reached at the moment, such as the other side of an impassable river, or a forest too dark to see into without a super bright light. Wondering when I'll get the item and constantly passing by it always makes me curious and gives me something to look forward to.
- Foreboding history having an unknown bearing on the present. Forest of Love has ruins all around which come from a civilization that long since passed, yet the runes on the ruins glow when strange forest stuff happens.
- Large creatures such as a rainbow bird or a giant dog with an island on its back always has a wowing mystery, especially so before it is explicitly stated to be there. When rainbow feathers start appearing beforehand or a giant flipper can be seen off a cliff, I always get a little excited at just what is going on with the world.
- Mysterious requests from an unknown source. In Silksong, a tablet details a sister who urges readers to commune with a bird at the top of the mountain. In Subnautica, a ethereal voice asks the player "who are you?" and commands the player to come closer.
3. What makes a game feel rewarding to me? (Silksong)
- Skill expression. Turning a fight from a player beat-down into a majestic dance is always fun to pull off. There is nothing more rewarding about games than mastering them, and having that mastery make an obvious difference in gameplay makes getting good so rewarding.
- Vanity. Silksong doesn't do this too well in this, but vanity and new house decorations are always the best rewards, nothing better that a furnished abode.
- Amassing a visual hoard, whether it's a family of dogs in Minecraft or a gem pile with gems is always nice. Collecting fabled equipment and putting it on display is a wonderful reminder of a journey taken.
- Achievements, from befriending the first character, and eventually achieving 100% completion are really rewarding, and helps to show me that I'm on the right track. This is especially useful with Steam achievements, where I can see completion compared to other players. If I ever feel like giving up on a game, I generally feel safe looking at the achievements to see what I should be doing next as a sort of spoiler-free guide. I also use achievements to see obvious stuff I've missed that I should have found already.
4. What kind of updates make me excited to return to a game? (Find Matt's Cats)
- A new game mode is most likely to entice me. Find Matt's Cats's next update seems likely it will add a gameplay mode to make it so only a few hidden objects can be found at once, with am emphasis on memorizing the location of every object in a level. I'm interested in that because, despite how simple it seems on the outside, it will entirely change the way I play the game
- Entirely new levels also get me back into a game, though not for nearly the same length of time
- and on the other side, I usually ignore updates that affect the entire experience all at once. I'm probably not going to play Terraria 1.4.5 for a while because it affects every class and every bit of the game so that each bit has a little bit of newness to it, but not enough in any part that makes it worth playing. Meanwhile the 1.4.4 update almost exclusively focused on melee, and I had lots of fun with that update because I could feel in each weapon the improvement, and experience nearly every bit of the update.
5. What makes a game feel alive? (Elden Ring)
- Plants and animals move, clouds part and come together, it rains, different times of day produce shade in a different place.
- Characters appear in different locations, their personalities change, their affiliations change, multiple of them become a boss, multiple of them come from bosses.
- Yet above all else, the reason I choose Elden Ring for an "alive" game is because of its online features. I played Elden Ring reforged a few years ago and it was a kinda sucky mod that felt very boring despite being very similar to fun base game. I've started playing it again recently and am shocked and how much a difference the online update makes. Never would I have thought that I could like being invaded, invading, or defending others. And yet more than all of that, the finger messages from other worlds and little ghosts running around showing what other players did and how they died makes an incredible difference. I know it's weird, but seeing "dog ahead" and "Mist, or Beast?" adds a lot of character to the game.
6. What do I wish more indie games did? (Night With Timber)
- Making an incredible story and plot. Without spoiling too much, the game starts off with a brutal and freaky hook, it's forgotten about for a bit, then it comes back later and a grand conspiracy reveals itself. It's an amazing story and makes me wish most indie developers cared so much about story.
- Another really good part of Night With Timber is the characters. None of them are pure goodness with no negative qualities, and even the really horrible villain was given humanity, even if that didn't change their alignment whatsoever. Seeing morally angelic characters is boring. (Baldur's Gate 3: Astarion's VA didn't just win off voice, he won off intricate character writing too!)
7. What makes me stop playing a game? (Terraria)
- Getting a new player into Terraria is hard. While each update adds QoL for getting into the game, it also adds more clutter. A good example of what to do is Stardew Valley, which uses both separate areas and also has different seasons or events that last just a few days and change the world. More confusing events are impossible or far less likely to occur early on, such as during the first season or year. Due to these mechanics, confusing clutter is kept for later parts of the game, where the player has lots of general knowledge.
- 1.4.5's secret seed menu highlighted a feature that seemed quite gimmicky and not fun for the average player. It should have been kept a secret feature because it's still not on par with the rest of the polished game.
8. What kind of game moments do I remember most? (Evoland II)
Evoland II is a game heavily focused on time travel, a concept I don't usually like. After the large disappointment of the first game, this game absolutely blew me away. Heavy spoilers ahead for one of my top 9 favorite games.
- After the main characters have been introduced, they travel to a lab to *do a life-saving thing*. It turns out the *life-endangering thing* only happens because they are there, and a machine takes control over one of the main characters to cause them to create the *life-endangering thing*.
- A different absolutely shocking part of the game is a quest revolving around a mountain and a time portal that when traveled into goes backwards in time[SPOILERS NEXT], where every major force in the game can be seen in its primordial form... Yet there is an insane amount of stuff that doesn't make any sense to be there given how far into the past it is. This is also the first time the "Anomaly" is seen, and it's introduced with incredibly disturbing music[END OF SPOILERS]. Honestly the whole game messes with the mind a little, which could be why I remember so much of it.
Anyways, a lot of this isn't exactly related to a cozy farm game. Just a bunch of unrelated things I liked about certain games. If all of these cool things came together into one game, the game would likely be a messy combination of way too many factors, but if any inspiration is able to be gleamed from this then that's Pretty impressive.
Then again, Palworld is adding an execution mechanic to their cozy farm game, so anything is possible!
