While it's very much a tongue in cheek jab to RPGs and old games for that matter, The Good Life ends up doing the same mistakes as every other game, this whole game is basically a gigantic fetch quest with some minigames every now and then. But while the game itself is basically non existent, the story is pretty funny and will keep you entertained, for the most part. If you're looking for a chill game to relax with and have a good laugh it's probably the right thing for you. As for me, I did feel blue balled because of something that happened in the game, but I won't mention it, because maybe someone with a different interpretation will find more enjoyment out of it.

Miles ahead of Deadly Premonition 2, but otherwise probably my least favorite SWERY joint. I think one of the biggest weaknesses of his helmed games is when there's an attempt at an open world, because it'll often be filled with awkward empty or repetitive spaces that feel designed by people who have never seen the world, and The Good Life is no different.

The simple act of getting around is even kind of torturous, and now the genre his team is working in, the life sim, can't really bear the weight of it. Part of the appeal in this type of game is gradually becoming familiar with a space so that it feels like a sort of home, and I imagine that's what the story wants to communicate as protag Naomi hypothetically warms up to Rainy Woods, but for me the layout and the tools provided to explore it just aren't going to permit it.

Also I think this game hates Naomi? I don't really vibe with a game where I'm inhabiting a character the game frames in such a mean-spirited way. I dunno, otherwise it can have its charms and I'm glad SWERY is still getting things made at least.

Probably the jankiest game from Swery... but still enjoyable despite/because of that?

Very fun compared to the other works, but still has a heart to it. Minigames could be 'better' but I still appreciate the effort to make an 'open world'/'town simulator' that has all these non combat/non-GTA elements to it.

A fascinating mess, but one that I appreciate having played.

A game that has dog and cat transformations, pee fetish, a surprisingly sincere commentary on fake news and predatory journalism, and an even more surprising well-researched background on British history and folklore can only be a GOOD game despite its numerous flaws - which I couldn't even be mad about because it only made the whole thing such a weird, but memorable, zany and, dare I say, charming experience.

One star docked for that goddam hellh- drinking game, though, which the devs seemed very proud of, for some baffling reason, for them to tack the freaking thing TWICE on the main quest.

"The Good Life" has loads of Swerys Goofiness that I've come to love so much and the art style is quite enchanting. The slice of life-ish elements of a farming simulator are inconvinient, but I actually do not mind them too much.

The real problem is that the story here is a choppy and incoherent mess that is clumsily told, hard to follow and seems to be going everywhere and nowhere.

It jumps Genres like it's on crack. It's starts like an Animal Crossing Style slice of life sim, then goes to regular small town mystery crime thriller, then to UFOs and Aliens, then to Government Conspiracy, then to Legend of Camelot and then all the way back to crime thriller again.

... just an absolute clusterfuck.

All in all, the game just went everywhere and nowhere at the same time, making much of the storytelling feel like a pretty meaningless waste of time and energy. And Dialogue.

"The Good Life" has some effective moments and made me smile and even laugh at times, but the overwhelming feeling I had when I saw the credits roll was indifference.

Beaten: Oct 16 2021
Time: 13 Hours
Platform: Xbox Series X

I could probably have a whole life to think about this game and still not know exactly how I feel about it, but that's the nature of a SWERY game. That's right, this is the newest game from the only man who rivals SUDA51 for amount of cult classics created. SWERY's games are always a bit unpolished, but make up for it by leaning into that feeling of unpolishedness. If you've seen the first season of Twin Peaks, the lack of polish in SWERY games stands in the same place as the stilted, awkward dialogue stands for Lynch. It gets you in a mindset for weird shit to start happening.

Twin Peaks seems to be a huge touchstone for SWERY actually. All of his games (or at least the ones I've played) seem to have it in their DNA somewhere, the peak of which HAS to be Deadly Premonition, which is literally just outsider art Twin Peaks for people who like jank as fuck Xbox 360 games. The Good Life is much less of an homage to Twin Peaks, but it's just as obsessed with small, rural towns, and their secrets.

The town of note this time is Rainy Woods, a small town in rural England. All the buildings are made of stone or brick, and farmland surrounds the buildings, each plot bricked off with small stone walls. The town's got a lot of history to it, and as you're a New York reporter looking to pay off her debt, you're trying to find out all this town's secrets. Surprisingly, almost no attention is spent on the culture shock of an American living in rural England. Instead, the focus is on rural vs city life, particularly from a rather class-conscious point of view.

I mean, Naomi (the DOPE main character) is 30k USD in debt to her employer. That's why she had to take on a job in a small town in another country, right? And that debt traps you in almost every way that you deal with others from the city, but in the setting of this rural town? It's completely abstract, might as well not even matter. You're put up (in a kinda dingy little shack) for free by the town, and everyone is genuinely warm and welcoming to you. The secrets flow like water, and there's really only one dark secret in town.

That's the most unique part of this iteration of SWERY's Twin Peaks-isms: the dark underbelly of the town, that everyone assumes is there from the start, turns out to really just be old history. Secrets are better left alone. It's a much more uplifting take on this theme, and though I suspect it's less true to life, it's pretty heartwarming all the same.

ANYWAYS

IN THIS GAME YOU CAN TURN INTO A CAT AND A DOG AND YOUR MAIN MODE OF TRANSPORTATION IS RIDING SHEEP. THERE'S A RIVAL REPORTER FROM BOSTON WHO SHOWS UP AFTER EVER STORY BEAT AND SAYS "LOBSTAAAAAH"???? ONE OF THE MAIN MECHANICS IS "MARKING YOUR TERRITORY" AS A DOG??????????? AND I'M NOT EVEN GONNA MENTION THE STUFF ON THE MOUNTAIN BECAUSE SPOILERS BUT HOLY HELL WHAT THE FUCK SWERY

like I said i could talk about this game forever, which is funny because it's basically a dreamcast game that came out in 2021. the graphics are very "wow this would look better in 480p", but the game's massively strong (but also pretty baffling) art design and aesthetic sensibility in general just pulls it along.

It's like, a weirdly charismatic game for what it is. There's mechanics spilling out left and right (there's FIVE different bars you have to refill daily by sleeping, eating, and showering basiclally) and the game almost entirely consists of fetch quests, but it's so charming and so relaxing that I didn't even care. Walking out to the lake at 11pm, listening to the genuinely gorgeous (Nintendo DS Pokemon-esque?) night music, and snapping pictures of any wild animals I saw on the way was the best part of the game for me. It was relaxing in a way I wasn't expecting, but absolutely a way I needed right now.

Idk play it if you like weird shit

On October 15th, I start playing The Good Life. Its on Xbox Game Pass, so I figured I’ll just give it a try for fun. It features Naomi Haywood, a journalist in crippling debt who needs money fast. She arrives in Rainy Woods with a hatred for “country bumpkins” and a slow run speed. Her first line is her hit catchphrase: “Goddamn hellhole.” The narrator mocks her relentlessly for supposed shallowness, in a way that starts to feel cruel almost instantly.

Slowly, the game opens up and my initial frustrations vanish. When Naomi turns into a cat, she can leap over fences and explore the full map of the game. When she turns into a dog, her run speed increases. Its starting to get really fun. However, I can already tell this isn’t a game I want to sit down and play on the couch for hours. I want this mobile, so I can easily stop playing at any given moment without worrying about finding a save point. I give in and buy the game on my switch for $40. The quality of the visuals is worse, but nothing that particularly bothers me. I start to replay the prologue and finish up sidequests faster. This, initially, gives me more money.

There’s several meters to keep track of. A food meter, a health meter, a stamina meter, an awake meter, and an invisible stress meter. Health meter shouldn’t be confused with HP. The instant the prologue ends, I go to eat some food to rebuild Naomi's food meter. However, it was too many sweet foods too soon. There's a cracking sound and I'm informed Naomi has a toothache. This cuts one of my stats, health, in half. I go to the merged Hospital/Vet. The doctor makes me pay $150 to fix my tooth. I now have less money on this playthrough than I did on the Xbox playthrough.

Problems escalate. Naomi's overall health meter (which I initially assumed was the stress meter) is at 0. This makes her more vulnerable to illness. I step outside of Naomi's house. As the game is loading, it informs me Naomi has caught a cold. Once the village actually loads up, I can see that its raining. A cold cuts Naomi's stamina in half, making it harder to run. Cold Medicine is also $150.

I start running around the map, trying to find opportunities to make money. I learn something interesting about the fast travel system. If you use the shrines to teleport, you can travel without any problems or consequences. If you try to fast travel using the map itself (which only lets you go directly to your house, tbf), it will add to your invisible stress meter and result in a headache. This impacts her Awake meter. If the Awake meter falls to zero, she'll pass out. Fixing a headache also costs $150.

I look online for ways to make money. At this point in the game, there's three plot paths I can progress down, labelled Route A, B, and C. You can do them at any time and you aren't even stuck on them once you pick one to do. I learn that when you finish Route A, an easy minigame opens up that nets you $750 a day.

It's here that I first read the words “DrinKing game.” The reddit and steam forums seem to be consistently bemoaning whatever it might be. I assume it's a pop quiz of some kind and brush it off- I’ll look up the answers later.

Route A is pretty fun, all things considered. I learn how to ride sheep. Unlocking the sheep lets you go even faster on the map, without worrying about your stamina. I go through sheep riding challenge courses, which eventually leads me to a castle. A knight in a squeaky voice gives me a puzzle to solve, which requires me to look at some paintings of local residents and figure out which one is fully accurate to the residents. I teleport back to the village, double check some faces, and then return to the knight. The knight opens up the gate. At this point, I'm locked into Route A and can't do the rest of the game until I finish this story beat. At the castle, Naomi is transported to the distant past. As part of the quest, she needs to smuggle some old whiskeys back to the present. To get to the castle basement, you need to do another sheep riding challenge, followed by slowly carrying some kegs from one side of the room to another.

A drunk vicar enters the room. He won't let me leave unless I beat him in a drinking minigame. He… is the DrinKing.

DrinKing requires you to balance a ball/(beer bottle?) on a plank, allegedly a visual for keeping your sobriety. If the ball falls off within ten seconds, its a game over. You have to survive five different rounds of this game before you can progress.

I fail consistently for an hour.

I return to the forums, searching for help. According to all these DrinKing game threads, alcohol medicine can be used to make the challenge easier. I also see a comment that says “Its not that hard on keyboard, not sure what everyone’s problems are. This game has a lot of issues, but this isn’t one of them.” I briefly, in my darkest of hearts, consider if a Steam version would be a better experience before I toss away the thought. I’m too deep into the game now. I decide to take a risk. I reload my save to before entering the castle and go to find this medicine.

I search for an hour. The Hospital/Vet doesn't sell the medicine. The grocer doesn't sell the medicine. The witch in the woods doesn't sell the medicine.

The clothing store sells the medicine. Mercifully, its only $7 each.

The clothing store has a stock of three sobering up medicine. If I want more, I have to wait for them to restock. They restock every Monday/Thursday.

I decide to finish more of the game. I start Route C, where I meet more wacky characters and take their pictures, which finishes more sidequests. I manage to get a stock of 6 medicine and I return to Route A and the castle.

So when the game said the medicine "sobered up" Naomi, I assumed it would stop the ball from falling off the plank for a while. Instead, it extends the length of plank. This gives you more time to survive and make a recover if you're spiraling out of control, but not much.

I play the minigame for another hour. I make no progress.

I realize I need more medicine.

Throughout all this, I haven’t stopped thinking that comment about how easy this game was.

I look at the clock.

Its 6 am. I had started that current session around 8 pm, intercut with some chatting with my partner and googling. I had an eye doctor appointment in three and a half hours.

Despite all my frustration and anger and despair and existential dread…. I couldn’t put this game down for a second.

Its a bad game to play. The writing is clumsy and cliche, its mean to its protagonist in a way that makes it unclear if its targeting the player too. The mechanics, the game feel of it all, is utterly atrocious. But… I kind of love it. I don’t know how to explain why. There’s a real possibility I go for all the sidequests. I can't stop thinking about this game. Its... incredible.

My first review with a disclaimer: I helped fund this!

I love SWERY games. Like Deadly Premonition before it, The Good Life feels like it was made by aliens who have never met a human before, with naught but duct tape and a bit of optimism holding it together. While the game feels like it's about to collapse under its own weight at any given moment and I'd hardly call it fun per se, its relentless charm and brazen weirdness kept me going til the end. A mess, but a lovely mess - just like Naomi herself!

for all the breadth of sim mechanics that would normally be endearing in swery's games for their goofy excess, like a pile of cherries on top of a nothing fancy but lovingly home churned vanilla ice cream, here thats all there is to appreciate with nothing all that enticing centered around it. characters are nothing and the eccentricity feels forced, falling into a largely worsening trend since d4. felt my heart sink when i saw there was crafting materials fetch quests in this one too AND it does the same "protag rolls eyes loudly rpg tedium am i right gamers!" schtick. marginally better than deadly premonition 2 possibly (it does function better), but they also hinted at another incest thing they probably arent gonna do anything interesting or tactful with, so who can say really. im done with this dude

The mechanics don't all work, it runs like butt on the Switch, the open world is mostly empty, and there are other technical issues.

But...

It is goofy and fun and light-hearted in a way that games don't really get to be very often, and it gets points for that. And even with the negatives I listed at the top, I still had a REALLY fun time playing it.

This game is really charming and it was hilarious unlocking new things like sheep riding and peeing. However, the main gameplay loop and each of them mechanics are just... eh. So once you stop unlocking new things it stops being exciting.

The thing that made me stop playing is a plot point that requires me to, with no choice in the matter, do harm to the helpful NPCs. I just didn't want to do that just to advance in the plot, like it just sucks the fun out of it. Maybe I'll pick it back up at some point but it's unlikely.

Very few of the sidequests in this open-world lifestyle sim are of any real value. And most of the time you'll spend in Rainy Woods will be tied up in fetchy side content that gives you only a marginally better understanding of the characters and the world. The controls are stiff and the graphics don't really stack up against the majority of Playstation 3 games. But all that said, 'The Good Life' is one more fascinating and trippy sci-fi horror fantasy comedy story from Swery65. I became very invested in Rainy Woods, Naomi Haywood, and the personalities around her. I think Swery is best known for his character building and dialogue writing, but his games also tend to have really interesting stories. The story of 'The Good Life' is so oddly specific that it's a marvel anyone would have thought it up. And it has a point to make too, about celebrity culture, social media, and alternative facts. I'll follow Swery where he goes, because even if the game is janky as all hell (and it often is), you are guaranteed to have a unique experience.

My experience with this game was a constant feeling of, "This could be so good if it wasn't so bad." It has all the SWERY charm you'd be looking for going into it, but is endlessly marred by lack of QOL and endless repetition. I think it's definitely possible to enjoy yourself with this game, but you have to take steps for it.

1. Temper your expectations. The "mystery" elements are more of a pinch of flavor for the setting rather than a central theme, so don't get caught up in trying to solve it or piece things together.

2. Money isn't everything. Your giant debt and the general themes of the game may present money-making as your prime concern, but there really isn't that much to spend on unless you're trying to be a completionist (Do not fucking do this you will go insane.) As long as you accept oracle quests whenever you can along with the occasional sidequest, your only real hurdle will probably be camera parts.

3. For the love of God, do not try to do every sidequest. For some reason, only one quest can be active at a time, so trying to micromanage a dozen at once is hell. Almost none of them have unique rewards either, unless you count a bit of backstory, so you can get just as much by doing passive oracle quests. They also have this habit of making you do tasks in sets of 3, which Naomi will almost always complain about, which I assume SWERY/the devs/whoever I can blame for this thought would absolve them from said criticisms. She does this a lot.

4. Prepare for Naomi to say "YEAH BABY!" every time you dash on a mount. You cannot turn it off. You cannot turn down character voices without lowering the master volume. Accept it now so you can focus on steering a sheep with tank controls through a 3 ft gap in a fence.

I really can't recommend this to anyone but those who know what they're getting into. If you're still not dissuaded, though, you'll find a game with a lot of charm and heart put into it.