one of the most frustrating games i've played in quite some time. at a glance, this could've been one of my absolute favorite games. the wonderful setting, relaxed gameplay loop, town of characters, and more all appealed to me heavily. sadly there were massive issues with the performance and some iffy execution elsewhere.

the daily schedule of delivering mail/packages while interacting with townsfolk was wonderful. getting to know everyone was a joy even if some of the voice acting and development were both lacking at times. there wasn't much to the game beyond this so even with the short length it started to feel stretched thin. attempts were made to diversify the gameplay with the camera and photography contest but it was inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. a bit more to do, even if they were little mini-games slotted in during interactions with the neighbors or when doing things at home could've went a long way.

i won't speak for the other platforms but playing this on Xbox Series X was shockingly rough for performance. i'm not particularly sensitive to things like framerate or draw distance (unless it's bad or all over the place) but this is one of the recent times where i felt the performance was detrimental to my experience with the game at large. tons of pop in of things when driving around, not even that far away from you. the more heavily wooded areas (there's no shortage of them given the setting lmao) had the worst of it with plants disappearing while right next to the mail van it felt like. elsewhere there were problems with flickering lighting and when it was time to pick my photo for the photo contest everything was just blacked out.

extra polish, time, and probably budget along with some more to do could've made this a big favorite. as it is, it can sit with some of my more frustrating almost but not quite faves. hope it won't take me long to find something like this again whether it's another game from this dev, a sequel, or something else entirely.