With decades of beloved titles populating the farm sim genre, it’s important for newer entries likeEverdream Valleyto build upon this foundation by observing what’s worked for its predecessors while still bringing something new to the farm table. The developers at Polishindie gamestudio Moon Eaters have largely succeeded at both tasks by introducing a number of thoughtful quality-of-life features in addition to a few gameplay twists that have raised the bar in several areas.
In an interview with Game Rant, developer Marek Maruszczak weighed in on the various elements he felt were important when it comes to the kind of cozy farming game he envisioned. In particular, he felt that it was critical for the game to be a welcoming and relaxing experience, so considerable effort was put into including a generous amount of helpful features along with plenty of options that allow players to fine-tune the difficulty level. He also felt that it’s important for the economy to be balanced so that players aren’t stuck repeating the same task for optimal income.
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Everdream Valley Strives To Be An Easy-Going, Relaxing Farming Sim
Despite thefarming sim genre’s typically comfortable and happy outward appearance, it’s actually a common complaint that players feel stressed out or frustrated by certain genre conventions. For example, inStardew Valley, crops whither and die if they go unwatered after two days, the player passes out if they’re up past 2:00 AM, and they can only save in bed. While these features can help drive the game’s momentum and give the player important things to consider, they can also hinder player freedom.
We wanted to design a cozy game where everyone can just relax and feel the adventure of summer holidays when you were a kid but without all the time limits like “Do this in two hours or your crop will die out.” So we are trying to make it even more cozy.
But at the same time, if someone wants to have a little bit more challenge, we are leaving those options available like those wolves, etc. Although we have a stamina system and you can run out of stamina, it’s also pretty easy to get more by eating fruits, and you can even level up your maximum stamina by eating different dishes that you can cook in your kitchen.
Everdream Valley’s developers realized that different players have different ideas of fun, particularly when it comes to challenges, and so they implemented several options that allow players to tweak the difficulty. Players who aren’tfond of cooking minigamesor who are frustrated by the hostile wolves at night can disable these in favor of an even more cozy experience. Other quality-of-life features like the ability to save at any time as well as send items from the inventory into storage from any location are also welcome changes that allow players to focus on their adventures.
Everdream Valley Wants To Avoid Overpowered Cash Crops
Inevitably, any game that features some sort of economy will see players finding a single efficient money-making technique that makes other aspects of the game feel redundant. Despite a huge range of fruits and vegetables to plant, mostStardewValleymoney-making guideswill point out that it’s best to sow a massive field with one particularly valuable seed.Everdream Valley’s breadth of gameplay options and its low-stakes economy is aimed at reducing the need for this approach, but the developers recognize that it will still take some work to iron out.
With the economy, there shouldn’t be an overpowered way to play your game. Like “Only growing tomatoes is the best way to get a lot of money.” Still, I know that we have some things to do in this category, but we’ll get there. It’s always a choice – especially with smaller games – what to have first, and we decided that we wanted to be a little bit different. That’s why we emphasized freedom for the players, but it also makes it harder for us to tune up the economy and the whole balance of the game.
SinceEverdream Valleywas releasedin May, it has already pushed two major updates that have addressed a number of bugs and balance issues while introducing even further accessibility options. AlthoughEverdream Valleywas already well-received upon release, it’ll be interesting to see how much the game improves as the team continues to develop updates and planned post-release content.
Everdream Valleyis available on PC, PS4, PS5, and Xbox One, and is coming to Nintendo Switch on June 23.
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