Upcoming 2024

Wed, Jan 3, 2024 Year 2, Autumn 01

Al and Jonnie talk about the games they are most looking forward to in 2024

Timings

00:00:00: Theme Tune
00:00:30: Intro
00:02:07: What Have We Been Up To
00:09:54: News
00:20:55: 2024 Upcoming Games
00:51:04: Outro

Links

Terra Nil
Travellers Rest Christmas Update
Sprout Valley Winter Holidays Update
Len’s Island Companions and Languages Update

Tales of the Shire
Snacko
Mika and the Witch’s Mountain
Rusty’s Retirement
Go-Go Town
Tamagotchi Adventure Kingdom
Horticular

Contact

Al on Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheScotBot
Al on Mastodon: https://mastodon.scot/@TheScotBot
Email Us: https://harvestseason.club/contact/

Transcript

(0:00:30) Al: Hello, farmers, and welcome to another episode of The Harvest Season.
(0:00:34) Al: My name is Al, and we’re here today to talk about Cottagecore Games.
(0:00:36) Jonnie: - And my name is Johnny.
(0:00:41) Jonnie: - Whoo!
(0:00:43) Al: Before we get into it, transcripts are available for the podcast and the show notes and the website.
(0:00:49) Al: Hi, Johnny.
(0:00:50) Al: How are you doing?
(0:00:50) Jonnie: Good good. I’m feeling excited about today’s
(0:00:53) Al: Hmm.
(0:00:54) Al: Nice.
(0:00:54) Al: Nice, nice, nice.
(0:00:55) Al: Yes, today we’re going to chat about what games, well, what college school.
(0:01:00) Al: We are looking forward to most this year and I guess we’ll try and keep the list too, not too long.
(0:01:11) Al: Because, I mean, I wrote down three and then Johnny wrote down five and looking at Johnny’s five, of course, I noticed at least one that I forgot about, so.
(0:01:20) Jonnie: Yeah, and that’s maybe part of the reason I put it on my list.
(0:01:25) Al: Yeah, is it not in the list of release games or did I just not put a date on it?
(0:01:28) Jonnie: It is not. I don’t think you’ve put it on. Maybe it’s there without a doubt.
(0:01:32) Jonnie: Anyway, we’ll get to that. I also have some games that didn’t quite make my list.
(0:01:36) Al: it is there. Yeah okay well let’s do some news first because we do have a few bits of news and just to point out we are recording this two weeks before release because I mean neither of us wanted to record on the last weekend of the year. So we are, this might be a little bit out of date and if we’ve missed anything then it’ll be in hopefully next week’s episode. So yeah.
(0:01:37) Jonnie: So.
(0:02:06) Al: Awesome. But before the news, Jonny what have you been up to?
(0:02:10) Jonnie: What have I been up to? I’ve been up to Coral Island. It’s great, but doesn’t run great on the Xbox Series S and it crashes a lot and I kind of got a bit annoyed.
(0:02:23) Jonnie: Just too many days where it crashes kind of at the end of the day and you lose the progress and it’s just very frustrating. So I have put it back down.
(0:02:30) Al: Yeah, that’s disappointing.
(0:02:32) Jonnie: But that game’s still really great. I think if you’re playing it on literally anything else, it runs fine. I think they’re just having problems with the Series S.
(0:02:40) Jonnie: this.
(0:02:41) Al: Yeah, they don’t seem to be the best at having optimised it yet, because like on the Steam Deck where I’ve been playing it, it runs really well, but it runs really hot and I get maybe like three hours of battery out of the Steam Deck, which is not a lot. So maybe not even that much, maybe it’s like two hours or something like that. It’s certainly not a huge amount of time. So I think it’s just really badly optimised just now and hopefully they can work at that and get it working better.
(0:03:11) Al: Um, I, my, my hope is that as they get it working on the switch, which is what they’re currently working on, that they figure out better ways to optimize things.
(0:03:21) Al: And once it’s actually working on the switch, they’ve passed those optimizations onto other things and it works better on, on the series S as well.
(0:03:28) Jonnie: Yeah, I have to say given the current running I cannot imagine this game running at all on a switch in its current state
(0:03:34) Al: No, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, which is not great.
(0:03:38) Al: So hopefully they fix that rather than just release a terrible port on Switch.
(0:03:42) Al: I guess we’ll find out sometime this year.
(0:03:44) Jonnie: Yeah, and so since I put that down, the game I decided to pick up is Palia, which came out on Switch
(0:03:53) Jonnie: last week, I think. Last week as we’re recording this, middle of December, I guess, based off…
(0:03:58) Al: 14th of December, yeah.
(0:03:59) Jonnie: Yeah, and I’m having a really good time with it so far. It’s…
(0:04:05) Al: Interesting.
(0:04:05) Al: It’s an MMO, right?
(0:04:07) Jonnie: Yeah, I don’t really understand what the MMO aspects of the game are yet.
(0:04:12) Jonnie: Great.
(0:04:14) Al: Okay.
(0:04:14) Jonnie: But it feels very like… I don’t know if you ever played World of Warcraft back in the day.
(0:04:21) Al: Like very, very small amount.
(0:04:23) Jonnie: Well, so the starting in many ways to me feels fairly similar to starting World of Warcraft.
(0:04:28) Jonnie: Like there’s definitely a visual similarity.
(0:04:30) Jonnie: And it’s just one of those things where you see other players running around in the world probably doing the same things you’re doing.
(0:04:36) Jonnie: But you don’t really have any reason to interact with them at this point.
(0:04:42) Jonnie: So I’m curious to see.
(0:04:44) Al: Interesting.
(0:04:44) Jonnie: What that is, but.
(0:04:44) Al: And is the gameplay loop like standard farming game or?
(0:04:51) Jonnie: No, it seems I guess a little bit more adventure based, so the the days run,
(0:04:58) Jonnie: I think every 12 hours equates to kind of like half hour of real time and they’re kind of constantly running and it seems more designed by you have your home,
(0:05:10) Jonnie: which is an instance area, so that’s that’s unique to you.
(0:05:14) Jonnie: You spend a bit of time there where you’ve got your farm, you build your house,
(0:05:17) Jonnie: a whole bunch of stuff there, and then you go out into the world to do quests.
(0:05:25) Jonnie: And in addition to your usual sort of farming game or cottagecore,
(0:05:28) Jonnie: Bevy of Skills, they have hunting and I because I don’t think there’s combat
(0:05:33) Jonnie: outside of hunting, so I feel like that’s maybe one of the things that you’re
(0:05:37) Jonnie: maybe more likely to do with other players, maybe there’s bigger creatures
(0:05:40) Jonnie: that you go and hunt or something like that.
(0:05:42) Al: Okay, okay
(0:05:43) Jonnie: - Yeah.
(0:05:44) Jonnie: Yeah, the gameplay loop seems to be more designed around do some stuff at your house, go out,
(0:05:49) Jonnie: explore the world for a bit, come back,
(0:05:51) Jonnie: progress things at your house because plants growing is tied to real world time.
(0:05:56) Al: Okay, interesting.
(0:05:57) Al: So I like that when you said that your home area is unique to you, so nobody else can go there, which means that you don’t have to worry about people destroying things and stuff like that.
(0:06:07) Al: Okay.
(0:06:08) Al: That’s interesting.
(0:06:10) Al: I’m unsure if I want to try it.
(0:06:12) Al: Like just MMOs have never really appealed to me, but it’s an interesting idea.
(0:06:18) Jonnie: Yeah, I think it will be interesting to see how that finds its way into the game, because at the moment it doesn’t feel particularly obvious.
(0:06:28) Jonnie: Oh, the other really cool thing that I like so far about Palia is you have a lot of control over where you can put stuff.
(0:06:36) Jonnie: So it is not gridlocked. I mean, technically there is a grid, but the squares are way smaller than the items, so it’s not like you’re putting a thing on a square.
(0:06:45) Al: Right. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. OK.
(0:06:50) Al: I can see how that would appeal to you. However, for me, that just goes everything is going to look terrible, because I can’t line them up properly.
(0:06:58) Jonnie: Oh, no, you can line it up.
(0:06:59) Al: OK. All right.
(0:07:00) Jonnie: They have really good tools to make sure you can line stuff up properly.
(0:07:03) Jonnie: So they have they have thought through that.
(0:07:05) Jonnie: So I think I think you’d be OK with it.
(0:07:09) Jonnie: So anyway, yeah, probably like having a lot of fun.
(0:07:12) Jonnie: I look forward to sort of sharing more thoughts as I get deeper into it.
(0:07:17) Jonnie: But why have you been up to?
(0:07:17) Al: we’ll sign you up for that episode then. I have basically just been playing Pokemon,
(0:07:25) Al: so as is standard for me when I get into a game, I get into a game and yeah I’ve been finishing up all the DLC stuff for Pokemon. I have basically done everything on one of the games, so I just need to go and do it through in the other game and get the exclusives, and then I’ll have all that done and I’m just trying to not spend my entire time shiny hunting which is always a problem I have right like I could spend forever shiny hunting but I mean only for a limited amount of time because I’m now at what’s my number I’m now at almost I’m only a couple away from 900 unique Chinese so I’ve got 200 left to go hopefully when I get to that point I can then stop until the next game.
(0:08:17) Al: I suppose I can’t be trusted. So yeah, I mean, I still really like these games. I mean, overall, it’s I think I’m more kind of disappointed in some of the performance aspects of things rather than that ruining for me. It’s just a bit annoying because I think like how good could these games be if they actually ran well?
(0:08:20) Jonnie: I agree, we cannot trust you, so…
(0:08:42) Jonnie: Answer, not theory.
(0:08:47) Al: Anyway, I have been enjoying that. So that’s basically all I’ve been playing and considering they just announced the epilogue for January, I’m sure I’ll be playing it in January as well. Yep, so there’s an extra little epilogue that’s an extra story that they haven’t talked publicly about what the story is about, but there is actually story to it. And that’s tied to a new mythical Pokemon, which they’re releasing in January.
(0:08:56) Jonnie: Oh, so there’s more to come.
(0:09:17) Al: And you’ll get the epilogue and mythical Pokemon at the same time. So yeah, we’ll see how that goes. So that’s my deadline for finishing what I’m finishing. Although I’ll be finished, I think probably, probably today as we’re recording, I’ll probably be finished on one game. I need to go play the other game because there’s not a huge amount of exclusives in this DLC, which is nice. There’s like six in total, but two of them are at the after of the story.
(0:09:47) Al: So I need to go to the after the story part first, before I can get those two.
(0:09:52) Al: But it’s fine. It’s not very long and complicated.
(0:09:55) Al: Anyway, should we talk about some news?
(0:09:57) Jonnie: Okay, just this once.
(0:10:00) Al: So one for you, Johnny.
(0:10:01) Al: Terrenil is now out on switch.
(0:10:03) Jonnie: Whoo! Yeah, I actually think, uh, so I think Kev and I did the episode for this one.
(0:10:10) Jonnie: I think it’s which seems like a better platform for it.
(0:10:15) Jonnie: Just, I don’t know, I didn’t love the controls on mobile.
(0:10:19) Jonnie: I didn’t finish it, and this kind of makes me interested to jump back in,
(0:10:24) Jonnie: back in, particularly because I’m going away to a place with
(0:10:27) Jonnie: dodgy internet for a few days. So I feel like I might download Terran along the switch. It might be a good one to play over Christmas break with family and friends because it’s, you know,
(0:10:36) Jonnie: turn based or like you’ve got time to think about what what actions you want to take, you know, you can just pause time and things like that. I feel like this might be a good game to pick up and well, by the time you’re listening to this, I guess the I guess the holidays are done. But that’s probably
(0:10:52) Al: Cool. Yeah, I will probably play it at some point now, because it is on Steam, so I could have played it on the Steam Deck, but my assumption was it wasn’t going to work hugely well with controllers, which is probably a bit unfair, because it’s not a standard now for Steam games to work well with controllers.
(0:11:10) Al: But now that it’s on Switch, it definitely will have to.
(0:11:13) Al: So I will have a look into that at some point.
(0:11:17) Al: Travelers Rest have a new Christmas event, which is out now.
(0:11:22) Al: It’s mostly just festive-based stuff,
(0:11:26) Al: and we know Johnny doesn’t like talking about festive-based events anymore, so.
(0:11:31) Jonnie: Yep, partly I had one and I was just like, ugh, can we not?
(0:11:35) Al: Sprout Valley also have a winter holidays update,
(0:11:40) Al: which does have some festive-based stuff,
(0:11:42) Al: but also brings in some really fundamental changes.
(0:11:46) Al: I don’t know why they’ve called this the winter holidays update.
(0:11:49) Al: This is like a 2.0 with some…
(0:11:52) Al: Pretty fundamental changes and it also happens to include an event that makes it snowy on the ground, right?
(0:11:58) Al: So first of all, like this is huge. You can now terraform.
(0:12:02) Al: This was one of the things I really wanted in this game because I found it really frustrating how
(0:12:08) Al: how little land you had and how it felt like you should be able to like expand onto other islands and stuff like that
(0:12:14) Al: and now you can you can just craft land tiles and just put them on the ground and you can craft water tiles and you can
(0:12:20) Al: bit them on the ground so you can you can.
(0:12:22) Al: Terraform your island as you see fit, which is pretty, pretty huge.
(0:12:26) Jonnie: Yeah, I feel like calling this update Winter Holidays when you’re including terraforming is…
(0:12:31) Jonnie: It’s just bad marketing.
(0:12:34) Al: Yeah.
(0:12:34) Al: Yeah.
(0:12:35) Al: I really is.
(0:12:35) Jonnie: You know, this should have been called the terraforming update because that is huge for a game like this.
(0:12:35) Al: It really is.
(0:12:40) Al: Yeah.
(0:12:40) Al: Yeah.
(0:12:40) Al: Or call it the 2.0 or something like make it clear that this is quite a big update, um, because they also have, um, you can now grow your own trees and So previously if you like cut all them down
(0:12:52) Al: you wouldn’t have any so now you can you can add more and um you’ve also double increased not in not doubled it’s more than doubled increased the inventory space to 16 and the chess space to 32. I still think it’s a little bit weird how restrictive it is but that is much less restrictive than it was. I think it was like six and ten or something like that so it’s quite a quite a big jump. Now there is a bot here in that it only works on new saves however
(0:13:23) Al: as I mentioned in the episode where I talked about this the game is very clearly designed to be like play a save for a while and then build up a new save like it’s really very definitely designed to have like lots of saves that you’ve played for a little time it’s not like a play this game in this save for a hundred hours like Stardew or Coral Island
(0:13:43) Jonnie: Yeah, that’s good to hear.
(0:13:46) Jonnie: I just, for 2024, the one thing I want is can we just get rid of inventory space being a thing in these games?
(0:13:52) Jonnie: Like it doesn’t add anything, you know, Fafarm wins the 2023 award for best inventory management because they have the one infinite size chest, which is great.
(0:14:01) Jonnie: But I’m so sick of inventory management, can we not?
(0:14:04) Al: Yeah, I think Coral Island has made some movement in a positive direction on that, where you can throw anything in any chest and then you can craft anything from anywhere using your chest.
(0:14:17) Al: So that, much like Fae Farm is good, but they still have like a very limited, what you can carry around with you at one point.
(0:14:27) Al: So it’s like, yeah, sure, you can craft anything you want, but if your inventory is full, tough,
(0:14:34) Al: you need to go back and throw something, or you need to delete something, right?
(0:14:38) Al: And that’s just really frustrating.
(0:14:39) Al: And I feel like it only exists so that you can upgrade your bag, which is like, okay,
(0:14:44) Al: sure.
(0:14:45) Al: Fine.
(0:14:46) Al: If you’re going to do that, make the final upgrade an infinite upgrade, right?
(0:14:51) Al: Because it’s like, oh yeah, you can upgrade it, but then you can only upgrade it to four times its original size.
(0:14:56) Jonnie: Well, even like, because even upgrading it doesn’t it doesn’t do anything like it’s not tied to anything else in the game, it feels like one of those, you know, things that is a legacy, probably like inventory space was probably originally added to these games because games couldn’t handle you having large inventories of stuff, right?
(0:15:18) Jonnie: If you go back to like original harvest moon or, or whatever, like it was probably difficult. And now people think of it.
(0:15:26) Jonnie: As this feature that a game has to have instead of an annoying frustrating mechanic that adds nothing.
(0:15:33) Al: Yeah, yeah, that’s fair. Yeah. It definitely feels like something that came from games that had very limited like memory and storage space. And therefore we can only give you this much. Like if back to like the original Harvest Moon episode that we had where it’s like you literally have two spaces in your inventory and it’s for your, your tools and and everything else doesn’t exist in your inventory.
(0:16:01) Al: Um, like that.
(0:16:03) Al: Because everything else was basically just a counter of how much you have of each thing.
(0:16:08) Al: Um, well, that doesn’t really exist anymore. And it feels like it’s like with games with lives,
(0:16:14) Al: right? That’s a holdover as well. And so many of them like Sonic and Mario, um, have started kind of moving away from that. So Sonic, I don’t think has lives anymore in the newest game. And Mario doesn’t in some of its games and does in some of its games, which is just a bit of a weird kind of like it’s half moved away from it.
(0:16:33) Al: I think the 3D ones don’t tend to have like, I don’t think Odyssey had lives, but Mario Wonder does have lives, but you can also get basically infinite number if you have, if you play the game as it is, right?
(0:16:47) Al: Like it’s such a weird thing where like lives kind of exists in games still, but it’s like why does this still exist even though it was a clear holdover from arcade games and only existed to get you to pay more money.
(0:17:04) Al: So yeah, I agree inventory space, make it infinite, we don’t care anymore there, especially with these games have so many different things you can upgrade, right?
(0:17:12) Al: If you couldn’t upgrade your bag in Stardew or in Coral Island, no one would be like,
(0:17:16) Al: “Oh, there’s nothing to upgrade.”
(0:17:17) Al: Of course there is.
(0:17:19) Jonnie: Right? There’s so much to do.
(0:17:21) Al: And if you think you need more, you just have to think of one other thing to make it the same amount as it would have been, right?
(0:17:28) Al: Like it’s just such a, whatever.
(0:17:30) Al: Anyway, yes, great. Have I missed anything else on?
(0:17:33) Al: This, uh, oh yeah, they’ve got more translations coming to Sprout Valley soon.
(0:17:38) Al: So that’s good.
(0:17:39) Al: What have we got?
(0:17:39) Al: Polish, Portuguese, French, Spanish, German, Bulgarian, and Korean.
(0:17:44) Al: That’s an interesting list.
(0:17:45) Al: I wonder if that’s just people that they knew because like, it’s funny.
(0:17:48) Jonnie: Sometimes, yeah, it can be hard to get access to people that can do a good job translating.
(0:17:54) Jonnie: I think that is one of those things that is an underrated skill.
(0:17:57) Jonnie: You know, it requires more than just knowing the language. It is a real skill.
(0:18:02) Al: Yeah, because obviously Spanish and Portuguese and French make perfect sense. And then you got German and Polish, which are like, okay, fine. Kind of still quite fundamental European ones.
(0:18:12) Al: And then you’ve got Korean. And that’s the only non-European one. Obviously,
(0:18:19) Al: Spanish and Portuguese and French do cover larger areas than just in Europe because colonialism,
(0:18:25) Al: but they’re still like based from Europe. It’s just really funny that the only kind of age and one they have is Korean, which I mean, I’m not saying, oh, they should definitely have more.
(0:18:36) Al: I’m just saying it’s just a funny looking list. That’s exactly what I’m saying. How dare they?
(0:18:36) Jonnie: No, you’re saying they shouldn’t have Korean right, Al. That’s what I…
(0:18:41) Al: How dare they? No, it’s just funny list. Yes, Lenz Island. Yep, they’re companions and languages update, which I feel like we’re missing some information about this, but I couldn’t find
(0:18:46) Jonnie: Uh, speaking of translations, Lenz Island.
(0:19:02) Al: actually look directly on Steam. Let me check Steam, see if there’s anything. But nope,
(0:19:08) Al: there’s nothing more about this. Literally all we have is a tweet, which says the companions and languages update launches this Friday, which is basically today as we’re recording. So soon.
(0:19:19) Al: Actually, it should already be out based on what they said. They said two days ago, they said it’s coming out in 12 p.m. AEST tomorrow. So it should be out. Like that’s now. That was only a few hours ago.
(0:19:32) Jonnie: Uh, yeah, that was many hours ago.
(0:19:38) Al: they’ve not posted about it being a no they have not okay yeah all we know about is the they’re adding languages and presumably there’s gonna be something about your companions in the game but they haven’t said what so they’ve said they’re adding Spanish Thai German and Chinese simplified Chinese I always that is one of the languages I’d I never quite sure because like the language situation in China is very complicated because you’ve got…
(0:19:40) Jonnie: Well, by the time this episode comes out, it will definitely be all resolved.
(0:20:08) Al: Mandarin and Cantonese, and those are separate from simplified and traditional, which I believe both Mandarin and Cantonese can be either simplified or traditional.
(0:20:19) Al: So when they say simplified Chinese, I don’t know what they’re talking about.
(0:20:24) Jonnie: Me either if you know send us
(0:20:26) Al: Because I believe that simplified and traditional is about the characters they use, but Cantonese and Mandarin are about how they use those characters.
(0:20:38) Al: So that’s good.
(0:20:38) Al: We like accessibility for people in games, and that includes being able to read in your own language.
(0:20:44) Al: All right, that’s all the news.
(0:20:46) Al: Not a huge amount, because as I said, we’re recording two weeks early.
(0:20:50) Al: No, just a week early.
(0:20:50) Al: We like accessibility for people in games, and that includes being able to read in your own language.
(0:20:56) Al: All right, that’s all the news.
(0:20:58) Al: Not a huge amount, because as I said, we’re recording two weeks early.
(0:21:06) Jonnie: We recorded like three days ago and that’s why there’s not much use.
(0:21:10) Jonnie: And also it’s it’s Christmas. I don’t know we recorded some number of days ago.
(0:21:16) Jonnie: Four. Four days ago. Yeah time is weird right now when we’re recording because also that’s 2023 and this is coming out in 2024. No we recorded this Monday. Just gone.
(0:21:16) Al: There’s still an episode to come out.
(0:21:22) Al: Yeah, it’s a week and a half ago we recorded.
(0:21:27) Al: Yep.
(0:21:30) Al: No, we’re recording right now, Johnny!
(0:21:33) Jonnie: Yeah, but the… (laughs)
(0:21:33) Al: Oh, oh, I see what you mean.
(0:21:38) Jonnie: I just… yeah.
(0:21:38) Al: I know what you mean.
(0:21:40) Al: Yeah, okay.
(0:21:40) Al: I thought you were trying to do that thing where when this comes out,
(0:21:44) Al: you’re saying we recorded four days ago.
(0:21:44) Jonnie: Ah, no. (laughs)
(0:21:46) Al: Right, no, what you’re saying is we actually recorded four days ago and that’s why there’s no news, because we get it all in the last episode.
(0:21:52) Jonnie: Correct. Correct.
(0:21:53) Al: I understand.
(0:21:54) Al: I understand.
(0:21:55) Al: We’re going to talk about what we’re excited about coming out this year.
(0:21:58) Jonnie: Yeah, ‘cause 2023 was a dumpster fire, so we’re throwing it in the bin and we’re talking about what we’re excited for in 2020.
(0:22:08) Al: Yeah, there’s a lot of games.
(0:22:10) Al: I’m not going to do the thing that I did for the Game of the Year episode What I just list everything is on the list because that would.
(0:22:16) Al: Be insane and there are.
(0:22:17) Jonnie: Also, half of it might not come out, so…
(0:22:20) Al: Half of it probably won’t come out.
(0:22:22) Al: We currently still have 12 games that are currently still scheduled to release in 2023.
(0:22:29) Al: And I don’t think they’re going to release in 2023,
(0:22:31) Al: but they haven’t officially said they’re not going to.
(0:22:35) Al: So at some point over the next week, I will just be changing all those to 2024 and assuming that they’re going to pretend that they’re going to release next year instead.
(0:22:44) Jonnie: I think I need to go to TBA.
(0:22:44) Al: So yeah.
(0:22:46) Jonnie: Thanks.
(0:22:46) Al: So, probably. We do have a lot of TBAs as well, and maybe some of them will release this year. Who knows? Oh, I forgot. We still have a new story of seasons. We have two new stories of seasons and two new run factories that have been announced. I wonder if any of them will announce next year.
(0:23:04) Al: Let’s talk about what we actually know that they think… I say no that’s coming out next year. Actually, we don’t know this at all, because remember Snacko was the most… No,
(0:23:14) Al: The neck hole was, and snackle, I think.
(0:23:16) Al: have both been most anticipated multiple times, so who knows whether any of these will actually come out, but we’ll see. So there’s lots of exciting. So Johnny, do you want to give us one to start with?
(0:23:30) Jonnie: Yeah, I’m going to start with my most exciting game for 2024, which is Tales of the Shire.
(0:23:36) Al: Yeah. And I forgot about this game. Apparently I missed it in the list. It is in the list.
(0:23:40) Al: I can see it in the list. It says 2024, but apparently I completely forgot it. How did I forget about this? I have no idea. Uh, we, we’re going to have to do this episode together.
(0:23:48) Al: I think Johnny. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I know other people will be excited about it, but sorry. I’m, I’m bagging it right now. It makes no sense.
(0:23:48) Jonnie: I think so. Yeah, look, and if I’m not on it as a Kiwi, you know, like Lord of the Rings is basically our country, and I may know people that are working on this game and have not been able to talk about it for the last, you know, however many years they’ve been working on it.
(0:24:12) Jonnie: But I am very excited to get my hands on Tales of the Shire.
(0:24:20) Jonnie: So I’m going to start with the first one, which is a particular given how good Disney Dreamlight Valley was.
(0:24:24) Al: Hmm
(0:24:28) Jonnie: Not that I expected this to be similar, but it’s raised my bar for a cottagecore game based on a well-readed game.
(0:24:32) Al: Yeah, I think, I hope it’s not like Dreamlight Valley, I hope it’s different. Because, I mean,
(0:24:40) Al: as much as I like Dreamlight Valley, I don’t want that. But with Hobbits, right? I want it to be different. I think I agree with you. I think Disney have shown that you can do good tie-in games
(0:24:55) Al: in cottagecore genre. Obviously, we’ve seen that with other games, right? Like the Spider-Man games are incredible. They’ve not just phoned it in with that.
(0:25:02) Al: But a lot of tie-in games with existing IP are pretty dreadful and have been for decades.
(0:25:11) Al: It was the standard thing that you make a film and then you make a terrible game about it. And people would buy that game because it tied into your game and so many of them are terrible. I played one of the more recent Transformers ones and it was dreadful still.
(0:25:25) Al: They’re still making them, still making absolutely terrible ones. And then you have the really big ones that were also still terrible like the Avengers game.
(0:25:32) Al: And stuff like that, apparently they’re still doing that. So I think Disney and I guess Sony
(0:25:41) Al: with the Spider-Man games have proven that you can make really good tie-in games.
(0:25:46) Al: And I hope this is also really good. And if it’s not, I’ll be right back.
(0:25:52) Jonnie: Me too. I think that for me the biggest difference is that you know Disney has such a vast array of characters to pull from
(0:25:59) Jonnie: And Lord of the Rings like the characters aren’t the appeal. It’s the setting so I think it’s gonna be really interesting
(0:26:06) Jonnie: How I guess how much the world feels like you’re in in the Shire, right?
(0:26:13) Jonnie: That’s that’s probably gonna be the thing for this game
(0:26:14) Al: Yeah, absolutely, however, if Gandalf and Tom Bombadil don’t come visiting, I’ll be disappointed.
(0:26:24) Jonnie: Oh, totally, right? You still want Gandalf, you want some of those big characters,
(0:26:31) Jonnie: but it’s not. You don’t want to be interacting with them. You kind of want your own adventure
(0:26:36) Jonnie: in that world where they are characters passing through.
(0:26:38) Al: Yeah, you don’t want that to be everything, you want the cameos to be there, but you don’t want it to be everything in this.
(0:26:44) Al: But we need the deep cuts as well.
(0:26:46) Al: We need the tombombadils, we need the, I can’t think of any others off the top of my head,
(0:26:50) Jonnie: Ah, like, we want, I want ints, right? We want ints.
(0:26:50) Al: but we need the deep cuts.
(0:26:52) Al: Yeah, yeah, definitely.
(0:26:54) Al: In fact, I want to build a tree house on an end.
(0:26:58) Jonnie: Yes. That’s… I’m right there with you. I think that would be great.
(0:27:02) Jonnie: You know, like Radagast the Brown, you know, like all of those sorts of characters are the ones I want to see.
(0:27:07) Jonnie: Like, I don’t really want to be talking to Aragorn in this game, I’ll be honest. That would be…
(0:27:10) Al: Yeah, I want all the ones that I care about, and I also want ones that I have to Google that they’re so obscure.
(0:27:18) Jonnie: Exactly. But we don’t know much else about– oh, sorry, you go.
(0:27:22) Al: I was just gonna say, you don’t have the limited amount of time of a film, right?
(0:27:27) Al: So you can add everything in, you don’t have to cut stuff, you don’t have to cut, you can add all the characters in.
(0:27:33) Jonnie: Absolutely. And it doesn’t need to make sense, right?
(0:27:33) Al: Do it.
(0:27:35) Jonnie: Like, this is not the sort of game where you need to pick a time in the canon and have all of those characters show up and it be canonically.
(0:27:41) Jonnie: Like, no one cares. No… well, a lot of people care.
(0:27:42) Al: No, no.
(0:27:46) Jonnie: And those people will be mad anyway, because nothing will be perfect, so…
(0:27:48) Al: Yeah, but they’ll be mad, but they’ll also already buy the game, right?
(0:27:52) Al: So, like, you’ve already got their money, they’re already gonna, you’ve already got their anger,
(0:27:56) Al: so you may as well just continue to make them angry and just, just not, I agree.
(0:28:00) Al: Don’t care about when it is, don’t care about where, like, bring back dead characters, right?
(0:28:06) Al: We don’t care, right? Just set it in a nebulous time, everybody’s alive. What, what a surprise.
(0:28:14) Al: Although, I do, I wonder whether, hmm, so here’s an interesting thing, I wonder if,
(0:28:18) Al: if Bilbo is there, are you having to go to the, like, can you go visit the, I can’t remember what they call the, the, the, the, the afterlife world that they, they goes to.
(0:28:32) Al: I can’t remember what that’s called. I’d love to be able to go visit that and then come back.
(0:28:36) Al: I know it makes no sense whatsoever, right? Because the whole point is, it’s a one-way journey, right?
(0:28:40) Al: but I still want to be able to go there and see.
(0:28:42) Al: billable there. That would be fun.
(0:28:44) Jonnie: I mean, I don’t know, because we’ve never really seen that in a…
(0:28:49) Jonnie: I feel like that would be a great setting for a farming game.
(0:28:52) Al: Yeah, yeah.
(0:28:53) Jonnie: Now that I think about it.
(0:28:55) Jonnie: But actually, if they do want to put it at a time frame,
(0:28:56) Jonnie: I wonder if the time frame between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings,
(0:29:01) Jonnie: like the main series, would be a good time,
(0:29:04) Jonnie: because you would have an overlap of a lot of the characters.
(0:29:08) Jonnie: Like all of the big characters would be alive.
(0:29:10) Jonnie: You would have good timing from a, you know…
(0:29:14) Jonnie: Who’s there? And they would just be in their sort of like,
(0:29:17) Jonnie: more beginner forms, right? Which would be fine.
(0:29:20) Al: So I guess if you were going to do that, it would need to be reasonably early because you wouldn’t, because obviously that time period is known for starting to see evil come back into the world, and you don’t want that in a Cottagecore game, probably.
(0:29:36) Jonnie: You could have elements of it though, like there could be that, you know, part of your motivation could be, you know, keeping the shire pure or a word that’s kind of less cringy.
(0:29:36) Al: Like you don’t want…
(0:29:46) Al: Maybe. I just feel like if you’re in that time period, you’ve got the kind of sword of Damocles holding over your head, like you know that an all-out war is coming and that doesn’t really set like a peaceful game. Like, “Oh, I know lots of people are about to die!” You know, it doesn’t really make you think about peacefulness.
(0:30:10) Jonnie: I mean, I don’t know if you know, you know, Middle-earth lore that well, but there’s not a lot of times of great peacefulness.
(0:30:16) Al: No, I know, but yeah. Anyway, that’s why I was agreeing with like, you just don’t set it in a time, just because then you don’t have to care about these things. You don’t have to care about the fact that there’s a war or there’s just been a war or whatever.
(0:30:32) Al: Now, just put it at some non-descript time with everybody there and we’re all happy.
(0:30:39) Al: But anyway, we’ll find out. I agree. I’m excited. Looking forward to this game.
(0:30:39) Jonnie: Yeah
(0:30:43) Jonnie: I love how for game that all we have is like a 30-second trailer that basically says it’s coming
(0:30:49) Al: Yeah, yeah, there’s literally nothing about it.
(0:30:58) Jonnie: All right, what’s your what’s your game now number one?
(0:31:01) Al: So I have Snacko on my list again, and I know it’s in Early Access, but one, I haven’t played it since it’s come into Early Access because I’ve been too busy, so I’m looking forward to playing it, and two, obviously, I mean, well, the 1.0 version is meant to come out this year, so I’m I’m looking forward to that as well. So, um, it, it released.
(0:31:19) Al: It’s so late this year that I was just like, just ignore it. It’s not a 2023 game. It’s a 2024 game, right? And its entire life cycle is going to be in 2024. That’s unless they obviously delay the 1.0 to 2025. Like I’m just going to consider it as a 2024 game.
(0:31:35) Al: Like sure. Technically it’ll be like, Oh yeah, but the early access came out in 2023. Yeah,
(0:31:39) Al: sure. If you say so, you know, it just, it will feel like a 2024 game to me, much like how Cordal Island released at the end of 2021.
(0:31:49) Al: I think it’s going to be a 2022, but I played it a little bit then, but realistically, it was a 2022 game.
(0:31:56) Al: No, 2023.
(0:31:57) Al: Oh my word.
(0:31:58) Al: Years.
(0:31:59) Al: No, realistically, it was a 2023 game and that’s when it got the big press and that’s when I put more hours into it then than I did the previous time, blah, blah, blah.
(0:32:10) Al: So Snacko is going to be a 2024 game and I’m looking forward to it and finally going to
(0:32:18) Jonnie: I’m also looking forward to Snacko finally coming out into 1.0 so we can finally stop talking about it in these upcoming game of the year episodes. But honestly my confidence isn’t that high,
(0:32:30) Jonnie: we might still be talking about this next year, so you know I’ll believe it when I see it.
(0:32:32) Al: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
(0:32:36) Al: It was nearly four years ago that we interviewed the Snacko devs.
(0:32:42) Al: So that’s the timeline.
(0:32:46) Jonnie: Yep, like honestly, I think one of my concerns the wrong word, but I think one of the challenges is the development cycle for this game has been so long and it’s been publicly known for so long.
(0:32:58) Jonnie: I just worry how much the world has changed since then and how well the game is going to,
(0:33:06) Jonnie: you know, exist in 2024 gaming circles.
(0:33:10) Jonnie: tools.
(0:33:10) Al: I think that’s a fair concern, but I think that it’s not like Cottagecore has become less popular in that time, and I think exactly.
(0:33:20) Jonnie: Now it’s become more popular, so there’s just more competition, right, and there’s more…
(0:33:25) Al: There’s more competition, but I also think there’s more people willing to try different games, and I think good ones stand out.
(0:33:33) Al: And I think that Snacko is different enough, that it won’t just be seen as, “Oh, it’s just…”
(0:33:38) Al: Like, because I think Carl Island’s big issue is people look at it.
(0:33:40) Al: And it’s like, that’s fair, but it’s also more than that.
(0:33:47) Al: But because of first impressions, people aren’t really willing to give it that time.
(0:33:52) Al: And you had the same feeling about it until you started playing it.
(0:33:55) Al: And you’re like, “Oh, you know, this is really good.”
(0:33:56) Jonnie: Yes, absolutely
(0:33:57) Al: Um, and I suspect Snacko won’t have that issue because it looks very different
(0:34:04) Al: and it’s marketing itself very different.
(0:34:06) Al: And I think also people like playing as cats.
(0:34:10) Jonnie: That is true. So it’ll probably be fine. I guess I just more hope that it’s actually a good game when it comes out and that
(0:34:16) Jonnie: you know people don’t get interested and they play and
(0:34:20) Al: That’s also true. But I have played the game like three, four years ago and I liked it back then. So I’m hoping it’s just that bit better. So anyway, Snacko, what’s your next one?
(0:34:36) Jonnie: Next one I want to talk about is Rusty’s retirement.
(0:34:40) Jonnie: So Cody and I talked about this one a few weeks ago.
(0:34:43) Jonnie: It’s the idle farming game that just sits at the bottom of your screen and takes over your life.
(0:34:48) Jonnie: Or that’s my assumption.
(0:34:52) Jonnie: I don’t know that I have a huge amount more to say about this beyond what we said a few weeks ago.
(0:34:56) Jonnie: It’s just that the idea of an idle farming, conical game seems really smart/evil.
(0:35:04) Al: They go well together as an idea, and part of the problem with Ido games is that you have to keep going back to them and you keep forgetting about them. Well, certainly I do.
(0:35:13) Al: Whereas obviously the clever thing about this is that you don’t forget about it because you don’t have to go into it because it’s just always there.
(0:35:20) Jonnie: So I am excited/nervous for this one when it comes out, but I think it’s just a cool idea,
(0:35:30) Jonnie: like the idea of a game that doesn’t take up the full screen and it’s kind of just sitting there,
(0:35:34) Jonnie: and I hope it’s like an actual idle game. Some idle games tend a little bit too much into clickers that need to be interacted with a lot, and I’m hoping this tends more towards idle games.
(0:35:42) Al: Yeah. Yes, I think it depends on how long it takes for crops to grow. Because if crops grow in five minutes, you’re going to get bored of doing stuff all the time. Whereas if they grow over the course of a day or something, probably, you’re going to be much more, I think, likely to go, “Yeah, yeah,
(0:36:05) Al: I’ll play it for a little bit a day, and then maybe later in that day you’ll try and do something else as well, but you won’t feel like you have to do your stuff.
(0:36:12) Al: Follow the team.
(0:36:13) Jonnie: Yeah, and you just watch the crops grow over the course of the day I will say that they have announced that there is going to be a focus mode that slows down the pace that the crops grow
(0:36:14) Al: » Exactly.
(0:36:16) Al: Exactly.
(0:36:23) Jonnie: So, you know, it’s at least something that they’re thinking
(0:36:26) Al: Yeah, I just feel like with that, I don’t know what I I don’t know if I would want ever want to do that. Like it just, yeah, it just feels like, Oh yeah, I’m just going to deliberately slow down my gameplay. I don’t know.
(0:36:34) Jonnie: focus. Oh yeah, our brains are not wired that way at all. But having the option is one of those things that makes us way more likely to, you know, give it a go, right? Because we know that we can,
(0:36:51) Jonnie: even if we know that we never will.
(0:36:53) Al: Yeah, maybe. Maybe. Maybe. Anyway, I’m intrigued to see what it’s like, but I think I probably need to not install it. But we’ll see. I certainly, you know, I work on a client machine, so I certainly can’t install it on my work machine. No, I’m pretty sure they are. They definitely I know people who have installed things and they’ve got a message from IT saying
(0:37:10) Jonnie: I think you mean you shouldn’t. I believe that you can.
(0:37:23) Al: uninstall that, please. It has happened before. Anyway, so I think this is on your list as well, but Mika and the Witches Mountain I’m very excited for. I feel like this game has been coming out for quite a while. GB announced like a whole bunch of games all at the same time and one of them has come out. So I’m looking forward to this one. I think it looks fun. I like flying games.
(0:37:29) Jonnie: Yes. Right, next game.
(0:37:53) Al: When the controls are good, and I think that one of the things that Chibig do well is controls.
(0:38:02) Al: Their 3D platformer that came out this year was particularly nice to control. So hopefully
(0:38:09) Al: that continues with this game as well. And flying is fun, right?
(0:38:14) Al: You know?
(0:38:14) Jonnie: Flying is fun, and this game just looks really cute.
(0:38:20) Jonnie: You know, like, this probably would have been number one for me in a year that, you know,
(0:38:23) Jonnie: Lord of the Rings didn’t have a game coming out.
(0:38:26) Jonnie: And even then I think it was still close.
(0:38:28) Jonnie: I’m probably just a little bit hesitant because it was supposed to come out in September of 2023 and
(0:38:34) Jonnie: I feel like it’s gone a little silent on when it’s meant to be coming out.
(0:38:39) Jonnie: I don’t think we have a confirmed date for it yet just early in 2024.
(0:38:44) Al: Yeah, I think… did they say first half I think?
(0:38:44) Jonnie: Yeah, I can’t remember exactly what they said, but I want to be more excited about this.
(0:38:53) Jonnie: I just feel like until we get that date, it’s the sort of, you know, delay that makes me nervous because it’s the what’s gone wrong to the level that they don’t know how to fix it, that they’re not willing to do it.
(0:39:05) Al: I think it’s more just like they’re doing the sensible thing of not saying the new date even though they have one internally because then they don’t have like if they if they find a bug last minute they can delay it by another month and not get have that negative press like I think that’s the way that people should do things like sure say vaguely when you’re going to announce right don’t say we have literally no idea when this is coming out say we’ll hope to release in 2024 right fine great but don’t give us an exact date that’s stupid.
(0:39:36) Jonnie: Yeah, I hope that’s what it is and I think I just need to channel a little bit of my inner Kiv here and like just, you know, make some, yeah, super excited like that’s, that’s, you know, like I just as soon as we started talking about it I think I heard Kiv just like scream in excitement.
(0:39:45) Al: Well, and I think that they have proven they can get games out and they can do it well.
(0:39:56) Al: And like Summer and Mara came out when it was meant to and it was a Kickstarter, right?
(0:40:01) Al: So like that was never delayed, I don’t think at all.
(0:40:05) Al: So I think they’ve proven they can deliver games, they can deliver games that are fun to play and they have done multiple of them, right?
(0:40:12) Al: They’ve now done what, four games?
(0:40:15) Al: I’m not worried about it.
(0:40:16) Jonnie: Yeah, I think the other thing I’m excited about for Mika is I feel like it’s one of the games that’s really starting to push into not farming being the core of the game.
(0:40:26) Jonnie: You know, this being about you’re a postal person that I think is also that’s one of the things that is most appealing about this game for me is just pushing into those other cozy spaces and not being all about the farming.
(0:40:26) Al: Mm-hmm. Yeah » Thank you.
(0:40:30) Al: » Yeah.
(0:40:40) Al: Yeah, yeah, I agree.
(0:40:41) Al: Um, we can do, we can do a cottage core without, without it just being farming, which is good.
(0:40:47) Al: A, what’s your next one?
(0:40:50) Jonnie: My next one is one we talked about a few days ago from our time, many weeks ago in Listenerland.
(0:40:58) Jonnie: Tamagotchi Adventure Kingdom. That, you know, 30 second trailer that we’ve watched like 20 times.
(0:41:05) Jonnie: I’m still really excited about it for all the reasons I was really excited about it last week.
(0:41:09) Jonnie: It just looks dumb and stupid and fun and as much as I hate Apple Arcade, I don’t care.
(0:41:15) Al: Yeah, I’m intrigued by this game, and I will probably play it, and I’ll probably get Apple Arcade again to get it. It’s next month, isn’t it? Oh, it’ll be out by the time this episode comes out, won’t it? It was like the 4th of January.
(0:41:16) Jonnie: I’m gonna get Apple Arcade and I’m gonna play the hell out of some Tamagotchi Adventure Kingdom.
(0:41:30) Jonnie: Oh my god, that’s… Yeah, go play Tamagotchi Adventure Kingdom. Do that.
(0:41:33) Al: One, two, three… No, it’ll be coming out tomorrow when this episode comes out. It’ll be coming out tomorrow. Yeah, I will probably play it.
(0:41:45) Al: I’m not as excited as you are. I’m intrigued to see what they’ve done with it, and see whether it’s just Hello Kitty Island Adventure with different characters. But I guess we’ll see. Yeah, I think that’s probably the thing that gives me most hope about it, is that makes it feel like it has character, and so hopefully that means there’s mo- but I just feel like the trailer other than-
(0:41:57) Jonnie: We will see. I have watched the video of that stupid guy smashing his face into the rock like way more times than I care to admit.
(0:42:15) Al: that point just feels incredibly generic.
(0:42:18) Jonnie: Yeah, and it probably will be, and we will love it.
(0:42:22) Al: Well, let’s see. Well, let’s see. I have no idea if this will be in anybody’s game of the year list next year or not, but I didn’t think Hello Kitty would be either. Okay, my last one is Go Go Town.
(0:42:34) Al: I cannot- I’m just- I cannot explain how excited I am for this game. It’s just so ridiculous. I love how they are
(0:42:45) Al: trying to do something just incredibly fun and stupid but also building in new ideas and mechanics for things like no game has a chainsaw yet right and this game has a chainsaw to cut down trees and I love that idea of not having to use an axe or I don’t know whether you upgrade from an axe to a chainsaw at some point that would make sense but like yeah I just I love that and the the movement looks so much fun you can you know there’s like a
(0:43:15) Al: unicorn trike that you can go on that looks really fast and fun and everything about this game screams just do what you want and do it fast right and but not in a like stressful way in our this is just how you move kind of way which these games are always slower than I want them to be
(0:43:34) Jonnie: This game looks awesome. This is the one that I forgot from my list, until I saw it on yours.
(0:43:40) Al: Ah.
(0:43:42) Jonnie: When I watched the trailer, I was like, “I forgot that this game existed, and I’m so excited to be reminded of it.”
(0:43:48) Jonnie: To me, it kind of looks like someone looked at the terraforming aspect from Animal Crossing and just said,
(0:43:56) Jonnie: “How do we make this absurd and insane amounts of fun and just make that the game?”
(0:44:02) Jonnie: the game and it looks stupid stupid fun.
(0:44:04) Jonnie: Distinct visual style as well, I don’t quite know how to describe it, but it’s very distinct from everything else that we have in the genre at the moment which I really like.
(0:44:14) Al: Yeah, it’s quite cartoony. That’s the only word I have for it just now.
(0:44:18) Jonnie: Yeah, I would say anime inspired, right? Or cartoon inspired.
(0:44:21) Al: Hmm, yeah. Yeah, I’m super excited. I just love how they’re not just kind of doing the same thing.
(0:44:28) Al: They’ve got loads of interesting ideas into it. And it’s not like a static town.
(0:44:36) Al: It’s not like a static town, like so many of these games are. There are, as you say,
(0:44:41) Al: this terraforming. But you can you just
(0:44:44) Al: even just the idea of being able to expand your town is different than most Cottage Co. games. Right. Which is it’s fine because like a lot of a lot of times it’s like, oh,
(0:44:54) Al: you’re moving to a village and you don’t want to cheat, you want to fit into the village.
(0:44:58) Al: And like that makes sense. Right. But also sometimes you just want to you just want something to grow with you as well. Right. Like there’s a balance to be had there.
(0:45:06) Jonnie: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think it’s one of the, you know, to go back to Animal Crossing, it’s one of the fun things about that game, right?
(0:45:12) Jonnie: Is as you progress through it, the town builds up kind of as much as you want it to, which is fun.
(0:45:20) Jonnie: And I think this is going to push that to an even stronger level.
(0:45:22) Jonnie: Do we have a release date for this?
(0:45:26) Al: We do not. I am actually even just assuming that it’s coming out next year. They haven’t said it’s coming out next year. They just say to be announced. But based on how they’ve been doing their playtests and stuff like that, I just have a feeling. So we will see.
(0:45:40) Jonnie: Ah, that’s why I missed it from the list.
(0:45:43) Jonnie: Okay, great.
(0:45:45) Jonnie: I thought I was losing my mind, but I am excited.
(0:45:47) Al: Yeah, there’s lots of other, like I’m just looking at some of the stuff they said, like They’ve got a thing that allows you to just skip some of the day.
(0:45:56) Al: I can’t be bothered waiting for things to happen.
(0:45:59) Al: Let me just skip a few hours, which is pretty cool.
(0:46:03) Al: Um, yeah, I’m excited.
(0:46:05) Al: What’s your last one?
(0:46:07) Jonnie: My last one is, oh, I don’t know how to say the good name of this game out loud with that, like it’s…
(0:46:14) Al: Heart heart heart. It’s heart icular. I think
(0:46:17) Jonnie: Yeah, that sounds so particular. It just sounds not well thought through. I’ll say that much.
(0:46:24) Al: What a name being not ideal. That’s never happened before, Johnny. We’ve never complained about names before.
(0:46:28) Jonnie: Right.
(0:46:30) Jonnie: But I feel like…
(0:46:32) Jonnie: I feel like this falls into a new category of games you should have said out loud once
(0:46:37) Jonnie: Maybe not that one. Maybe let’s pick something different
(0:46:41) Jonnie: anyway, horticular
(0:46:43) Jonnie: this game intrigues me in that it’s described as a
(0:46:47) Jonnie: farm base building game and
(0:46:51) Jonnie: I don’t know that I
(0:46:53) Jonnie: have fully grokked what it is that you’re trying to do other than build out like a cool-looking garden and grow stuff and I
(0:47:02) Jonnie: Think that there’s something like I yeah a garden base builder is enough for
(0:47:07) Jonnie: That interests me. I like the visual style of what’s happening here. I don’t really understand what all of that means together
(0:47:14) Jonnie: But I feel like if it’s pushing into that sort of puzzle ish
(0:47:20) Jonnie: Kind of RTS without really being RTS is is interesting to me
(0:47:24) Al: Yeah, I don’t think I have a huge amount to say about this game. I’m not particularly excited about it. I guess I would say, yeah, sure, I understand the interest in it, like I’m interested in it. But there’s nothing that really grabs me as like, “Oh, I must play this.” I like the kind of the animal aspect of it, like it’s one of the more kind of environmentally conscious ones, which we always like.
(0:47:54) Al: But yeah, there’s nothing that grabs me and makes me go, “I must play this game.”
(0:48:00) Jonnie: Yeah, I think for me, this kind of feels like I feel like last year, you know, I had I talked about above snakes as, you know, something that looked like it was trying to do something interesting and ultimately, you know, I didn’t end up playing above snakes in 2023.
(0:48:14) Jonnie: You know what that came to be just wasn’t quite enough, but it’s something that I like to talk about in an upcoming lists.
(0:48:20) Jonnie: What are the things that feel like they’re trying something new? And like I said, I wouldn’t be surprised if particular was not that great when it comes out, but I kind of guess.
(0:48:30) Jonnie: I just want to recognize it here because there’s, you know, there’s so much in the list that’s like looks fine, but it also doesn’t look particularly new or innovative. And that’s what I felt about this one.
(0:48:41) Al: Yeah, fair enough. So there are lots more games coming out, but those are the ones we particularly wanted to talk about. And as always, it will be fun to see whether any of these are on the list of Game of the Year next year. I mean, we all know, we all know Snacko’s going to be, but go for it.
(0:48:54) Jonnie: Yeah, and just before just before.
(0:49:00) Jonnie: We will see, we will see.
(0:49:02) Jonnie: I do have a few that are just like I’m just going to sort of rapid fire a few through a few.
(0:49:07) Jonnie: So some meat light that game looks like it has potential,
(0:49:10) Jonnie: but might be in the I probably won’t play category.
(0:49:11) Al: I still can’t with its needs.
(0:49:14) Jonnie: Yeah, it’s not a great name.
(0:49:17) Jonnie: Lightyear Frontier mix look cool and, you know, farming.
(0:49:21) Jonnie: So so that might be a thing in 2024.
(0:49:23) Jonnie: Uh
(0:49:24) Jonnie: Chloa doesn’t really give me cozy vibes, but it looks like a cool adventure game And it’s one of those games that I could very easily see at the end of the year being like just one of my favorite games
(0:49:34) Jonnie: of the year
(0:49:37) Jonnie: And then lastly pixel shire looks kind of cool and interesting so so those are kind of my my honorable mentions for
(0:49:43) Jonnie: ones i’m Excited about but don’t have a huge
(0:49:44) Al: And yeah, I mean, I could probably list games all day, right? Because Petadachi, I feel like,
(0:49:54) Al: has disappeared from existence but might release next year, and I’m still super excited about that game if it ever comes. Ever After Falls was meant to be this year, probably next year as well.
(0:50:08) Al: I kickstarted that game and I’m very excited for that one. What else is there? There’s so many.
(0:50:15) Al: I’ve got quite a few early access to 1.0 that will probably come out this year, like One Lonely Outpost and oh, there was another one I saw that I’ve lost now. Oh, and Arklands, yes,
(0:50:26) Al: Arklands as well. I’m excited about it. There’s just so many games that I’m super excited to play this year. So hopefully I’ll be able to get through most of them. Have I lost you?
(0:50:38) Jonnie: You have not, sorry.
(0:50:39) Al: Okay, that was exciting at least I, yes.
(0:50:43) Jonnie: Hell yeah, so many games! It’s gonna be a bit, honestly, it’s gonna be a big year for the show in 2024, you know? We’ve just got a ton to, uh, a ton to cover, um, and I think what’s maybe most interesting about this year is it’s not really obvious what we’re going to be covering when,
(0:50:59) Jonnie: because it still feels like there is a haze over exactly what is going to be coming out.
(0:51:04) Al: Yeah. Cool. Awesome. Well, thank you, Johnny, for coming to join me for this
(0:51:10) Al: episode to talk about our, the games that we’re looking forward to this year.
(0:51:15) Jonnie: Thank you.
(0:51:16) Jonnie: I honestly, this is one of my favorite episodes to do.
(0:51:19) Jonnie: Because in preparation, you just get to watch a bunch of trailers of games that are coming out and be reminded of some things that you forgot about entirely and get really excited for them again.
(0:51:28) Jonnie: And then watch a trailer and think,
(0:51:29) Jonnie: did I watch this trailer last year?
(0:51:31) Jonnie: And then look at the release date of that trailer and be like, yes, I did, in fact, watch that trailer last year.
(0:51:35) Jonnie: And nothing else has really moved.
(0:51:37) Jonnie: So just the realities of developing games in the year
(0:51:46) Al: Yeah, and there are so many cottagecore games that if one gets delayed, it doesn’t really matter.
(0:51:53) Al: Just before anybody asks, no, I don’t think cottagehuckles here is coming out next year.
(0:51:57) Al: I don’t think it’s… I think it will come out 2025. But we’ll see.
(0:52:01) Jonnie: Oh, I want to take 2026 in this bit. I don’t even think it’s 2025.
(0:52:06) Al: Interesting. OK, we’ll see. I could see either 2025 or 2026, but I’m leaning towards later 2025.
(0:52:13) Al: But we’ll see.
(0:52:16) Al: We do have Stardew update next year as well, 2024, 1.6.
(0:52:18) Jonnie: This year, this year, it’s listening, so listening to it.
(0:52:20) Al: This year, this year, this year, yes, this year, this year, I was doing so well.
(0:52:25) Al: Oh, I hadn’t mucked up like that.
(0:52:27) Jonnie: It’s only like stupid early in the morning for you, so you can be forgiven with just this one.
(0:52:27) Al: Anyway.
(0:52:31) Al: It’s not stupidarily anymore.
(0:52:34) Al: It would have been had I actually gotten up at the right time.
(0:52:37) Al: Anyway, thank you for joining me.
(0:52:39) Al: Where can people find you on the internet?
(0:52:40) Jonnie: As always, if you want to interact, the best way to do that is patreon.com/thspod.
(0:52:48) Jonnie: If you’re starting to do that, you get access to the Slack, where I and a bunch of others can be found hanging out.
(0:52:53) Jonnie: 2024 is, like I said, it’s going to be a big year. There’s lots of games coming out.
(0:52:58) Jonnie: If there’s games that you want covered or you want to talk about that you’re playing.
(0:53:02) Jonnie: Or if you’ve got questions, that’s a great place to get involved and to just chat about all things Cottagecore.
(0:53:10) Al: Awesome. You can find me on mastodon.scot and on Twitter at thescotbot. You can find the podcast on Tumblr and Twitter at THSPod. You can find links to everything related to the podcast and a feedback form on our website harvestseason.club. One of the links is as mentioned the Patreon, patreon.com/thspod, where you can support the podcast and get more episodes where.
(0:53:40) Al: We are going to come out with a greenhouse episode very soon about the
(0:53:45) Al: non cottagecore games that we’re looking forward to this year.
(0:53:49) Al: And we just released one about our non farming game of the year.
(0:53:55) Al: So there’ll be lots more to come as well.
(0:53:58) Al: Thank you, Johnny, for joining me.
(0:54:00) Al: Thank you, listeners, for listening.
(0:54:01) Al: Until next time, have a good harvest.
(0:54:03) Jonnie: Have a good harvest!
(0:54:04) Theme Tune: The harvest season is created by Al McKinlay, with support from our patrons, including our pro farmers, Kevin, Stuart and Alisa.
(0:54:19) Theme Tune: Our art is done by Micah the Brave, and our music is done by Nick Burgess.
(0:54:24) Theme Tune: Feel free to visit our website, harvestseason.club for show notes and links to things we discussed in this episode.