Interesting deconstruction of the Harvest Moon genre - instead, the game focuses on a farm where it's hard to get by - where your town is nothing but a stopover for tourists and the rich on the way to the moon. Will you stay despite the routine and mundanity? Or leave everyone you meet behind for "The Moon?"
It's nice to see the few familiar faces also getting by, getting used to their rhythms, sometimes odd ones. I enjoyed the way some expanses of wilderness were just sitting next to your farm, full of some strange items that I never figured out the use for. Lovely art too!
Now to digress, generally speaking farming games make me wonder more about like - how do farmers live life and make meaning? Can a game express that...? The Harvest Moon format of farming games is obviously so stale and worn out... but I still think there's some kind of truth to life that the format of 'planting crops/gardening' could still convey. I like that this game tries to explore that format, even if I found the moment-to-moment kind of unengaging (even though that is of course, partially the point).
Farm work, I assume, is physically grueling. But is there something fun or satisfying in that? Something unique that establishes particular rhythms of life for farmers of different types around the world?
Beyond the typical HM-loop of watering my squares and selling the pixel vegetables for money every few days?
It's nice to see the few familiar faces also getting by, getting used to their rhythms, sometimes odd ones. I enjoyed the way some expanses of wilderness were just sitting next to your farm, full of some strange items that I never figured out the use for. Lovely art too!
Now to digress, generally speaking farming games make me wonder more about like - how do farmers live life and make meaning? Can a game express that...? The Harvest Moon format of farming games is obviously so stale and worn out... but I still think there's some kind of truth to life that the format of 'planting crops/gardening' could still convey. I like that this game tries to explore that format, even if I found the moment-to-moment kind of unengaging (even though that is of course, partially the point).
Farm work, I assume, is physically grueling. But is there something fun or satisfying in that? Something unique that establishes particular rhythms of life for farmers of different types around the world?
Beyond the typical HM-loop of watering my squares and selling the pixel vegetables for money every few days?
2 Comments
Thanks for the comment! What kind of farming did you do and for how long?
Yeah... I've been eternally tortured by the fact that farming is so clearly a gigantic part of our world that many people dedicate their lives to - and there's so much that's interesting about the ways people work with land or ecology through crafts, agriculture, forestry, arts... whether they are farmers or related to food production in other ways - but all games have to answer for it are these dead-end grid-clicking sims and a few interesting games here and there.
Yeah, I'd love to make a game that's sort of immersive-sim-ish or sandbox-y in some way and related to agriculture. There's definitely a lot of ways you could conceptualize "the field" as another character or system to deal with, I think this could be done in a way that doesn't feel overly micromanage-y or realistic... yet that can still command a respect and intrigue for the complexity that agriculture contains.
I'm not sure why I didn't realize I could literally just go look up how peanut farming works or something. I just found a "American Peanut Research and Education Society" page with free books on everything about peanuts. It's mind-boggling to think that the same level of depth exists for every kind of crop.
Yeah... I've been eternally tortured by the fact that farming is so clearly a gigantic part of our world that many people dedicate their lives to - and there's so much that's interesting about the ways people work with land or ecology through crafts, agriculture, forestry, arts... whether they are farmers or related to food production in other ways - but all games have to answer for it are these dead-end grid-clicking sims and a few interesting games here and there.
Yeah, I'd love to make a game that's sort of immersive-sim-ish or sandbox-y in some way and related to agriculture. There's definitely a lot of ways you could conceptualize "the field" as another character or system to deal with, I think this could be done in a way that doesn't feel overly micromanage-y or realistic... yet that can still command a respect and intrigue for the complexity that agriculture contains.
I'm not sure why I didn't realize I could literally just go look up how peanut farming works or something. I just found a "American Peanut Research and Education Society" page with free books on everything about peanuts. It's mind-boggling to think that the same level of depth exists for every kind of crop.
mosspunk
3 months ago
i think if the game had a more responsive/reactive ecological environment, that you had to actually understand and plan your actions with, that could open up a lot of doors. throw away the idea of clearing out land to a blank slate and then planting in grids, make the land almost like a puzzle or 2nd player you have to consider.
there is a lot of emergent problem solving in farming that could almost be immersive-sim-ish in a game. ie you have beans to plant but they need something to cling to and climb. yet your only open field space with enough sun has no structure. you could plant corn or sunflowers there early, and time it so the beans start sprouting as the corn/sunflower/whatever is mature. the beans will actually climb up the stiff tall sunflower stalks. idk but i'm sensing some game logic in that kind of thinking.
the other piece, to portray why that life can feel satisfying, i think would be to include even more of the scripted-but-unexpected, slice-of-life type scenes you get in Before the Green Moon. i think those scenes could be used for quiet encounters with the land as well as social encounters with other characters. and the way those scenes were presented in BTGM did actually feel really authentic to my experience of getting to know ppl in the context of living on communal farms.