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Anonymous11/16/25, 13:04No.2241362Story of Seasons / Stardew Valley / Rune Factory / Harvest Moon / Farming & Life Sims
Why did Marvelous abandon the Trio of Towns formula?
>multiple towns with different aesthetics and strong identities
>food effects encourage cooking variety
>crops have 4 different qualities, plus giant and golden crops
>animals have 4 qualities as well
>festivals below the highest difficulty only judge a selection of qualities, necessitating different fertilisers/treats than your default
>father has a rad nickname in the festivals that aged wonderfully
It's hard to play other farming sims after that. Throwing fertiliser at crops and getting a "chance" that they'll get a star next to their name. But only that one time, next sowing season you start from 0 again, whether you make seeds from good crops or not. Gay ass waifus. Half-baked combat thrown into every game. Why not make farming good and cut the rest? Trio of Towns will have its 10th anniversary next year and in my mind it hasn't been surpassed since.
You know the staples. What would you change to improve the genre?
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Anon11/16/25, 14:10No.2241444
>What would you change to improve the genre?
Why would I care about it, if I already have games I like, with features I like, the way I like them?
I'm not a game dev, so I don't have to come up with ideas how to sell my game. I already have my perfect set of games as a player
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Anon11/17/25, 05:56No.2243191
The target demographic doesn't care for complexity in these types of games, so publishers don't either, and all indie developers are busy trying to copy Stardew Valley to innovate.
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Anon11/17/25, 22:24No.2244921
>You know the staples. What would you change to improve the genre?
"The genre" is unified only by the actual gameplay, but the end goal varies, as do the intermediate rewards.
You could try to put all of the games together so everyone gets everything, but then you have to balance the game, and the game not being "infinite money after season 1" means the average comfyfag will complain.
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Anon11/17/25, 23:24No.2245041
The only farming game I have played was Stardew Valley and it was surprisingly good. Maybe other games have done something different but it seems the genre is mostly about having a cozy feel-good atmosphere so you can enjoy expanding and customizing your farm. As opposed to other /vst/ games where difficulty and/or complex gameplay is desirable in these games the most important thing would be making the visuals pleasing to look at and giving the player a sense of progress from blank slate to complete farm.
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Anon11/18/25, 03:10No.2245513
Isn't this more of a /vrpg/? Though I can understand you posting here since that board is a shithole.
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Anon11/19/25, 04:47No.2248287
What always struck me as odd in this type of game was that the player always does the same jobs; it's always amateur farmer/rancher/miner/fisher/hobo/fly-swatter/tax-evader, so it would be a nice change of pace if we ran the town's general store, were the town doctor, patrolled the town as a policeman, or something different.
I know there are games that have you doing these jobs, but they never come with a village of characters you can form "relationships" with, but the perspective from a different profession could yield unique characters with story lines that haven't been seen in the genre while mixing up the usual routines.
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Anon11/22/25, 18:51No.2255111
Played Stardew a few months ago and found it a great time. I fell in love with Haley at first sight and wish I had an IRL girlfriend like her.Funnily, achieving things in-game and making a great life for my farmer inspired me to go out, learn and achieve things in real life instead of sitting on my room playing games all day. Stardew will always hold a place in my heart for that.
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Anon12/02/25, 08:14No.2274444
Why does there always have to be so much magic shit in these? Why can't it just be a farming+dating sim?