I sit down at my Summer time Sport Fest Fae Farm hands-on anticipating simply one other Stardew Valley clone, one other cozy recreation that may quickly seize the eye of Disney adults and youngsters. However inside minutes, I understand I’m very flawed. Certain, Fae Farm has crops you possibly can farm, and cutesy little NPCs you possibly can romance, and a house you possibly can embellish, all of the stuff you’d anticipate. However there’s extra happening underneath the hood.
My Fae Farm hands-on demo
It has dungeons, for one factor, stuffed with assets you’ll must craft the numerous obligatory objects to develop and enhance your own home, your pets’ stables, your potion stations, and your crops. You’ll be able to go into these dungeons along with your weapon swinging and bash the baddies till they offer you their assets, or you possibly can study spells to solid at them, or you possibly can brew a potion that may make you invisible and allow you to sneak previous to seek out the treasures that lie previous them.
Your own home has a coziness system that gives buffs on your power, stamina, and mana, all of which you’ll must discover Fae Farm’s world. There’s seasons and dynamic climate techniques that may negatively have an effect on your stamina or power, however you possibly can fight them by brewing a particular tea that may assist maintain you heat or cool in additional excessive temps.
Fae Farm allows you to maintain animals, as nicely, and collect assets from them whereas additionally constructing a bond between you. And the dozen or so NPCs on the earth will educate you how one can increase your talents, whether or not it’s constructing issues that will let you prepare dinner extra concerned meals, or educate you spells that allow you to water all of your crops in a single go, or ship you on quests that may get you cash and goodies galore.
After I ask Phoenix Labs PR Supervisor Andy Burt how he’d describe Fae Farm, since so many individuals will assume it’s only a farming sim, he tells me that it’s the magical parts that make this recreation so totally different, and the truth that there are such a lot of totally different approaches you possibly can take to the sport that may dictate your expertise. If you wish to go whacking your means by way of dungeons, you possibly can, however if you wish to play it as a farming sim for 300 hours, you are able to do that, too.
Add a beautiful character customization system that features they/them pronouns, varied physique sorts and pores and skin tones, and cutesy magical parts, and Fae Farm is, to date, my large Summer time Sport Fest shock.
Fae Farm is out later this yr for Nintendo Change and PC.
Kotaku is masking all the pieces Summer time Sport Fest, from the principle present on Thursday to different occasions taking place all through the subsequent week. Whether or not you’re into larger-than-life triple-A video games or intimate, offbeat indies, you possibly can sustain with all issues SGF right here.