Farming Simulator Sickos

Wed, May 8, 2024 Year 2, Autumn 19

Codey and Jonnie talk about Rusty's Retirement

Timings

00:00:00: Theme Tune
00:00:30: Intro
00:01:14: What Have We Been Up To
00:09:02: News
00:36:48: Jonnie Rants About Coral Island
00:43:23: Rusty’s Retirement
01:16:02: Outro

Contact

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Email Us: https://harvestseason.club/contact/

Transcript

(0:00:30) Codey: Hello and welcome to another episode of The Harvest Season. My name is Cody and we’re here today to talk about cottagecore games. Whoo! As always,
(0:00:36) Jonnie: and my name is Jonny.
(0:00:38) Jonnie: Whoooo!
(0:00:45) Codey: transcripts are available in the show notes and on the website and today we are gonna talk about Rusty’s retirement. Whoo! Which I am addicted to already.
(0:01:01) Codey: We will figure… I will figure out how to mentally and emotionally detach from it at some point I’m sure. So that’s what we’re gonna talk about is that data journey. Before that we have news but before that Johnny what have you been
(0:01:16) Jonnie: What have I been up to? I feel like the last few months I’ve been bouncing between games and trying to find a thing and nothing’s really been sticking. And last night I decided I was going to try Cyberpunk, because I was kind of feeling like that open world sort of call.
(0:01:36) Jonnie: And I know the game had a lot of issues when it first came out, but there’s been plenty of time and I really enjoyed The Witcher 3, which is the same.
(0:01:47) Jonnie: So I was like, let’s try Cyberpunk. And I’m very, very early into Cyberpunk, but I’m really enjoying it. It feels like this is the thing I was probably looking for, just open world, turn your mind off, fun story, but easy to get distracted sort of game. So yeah,
(0:02:07) Jonnie: I’m looking forward to getting more and more into Cyberpunk.
(0:02:10) Codey: Do you feel like it’s been fixed, the issues that were present in the beginning?
(0:02:19) Codey: Do you know the history of the game?
(0:02:22) Jonnie: Not really like I don’t really recall like I remember seeing it and I was aware of it at the time but none of it really like stuck in my brain because I just don’t think I cared that much.
(0:02:35) Jonnie: I feel like I’m so early that I can’t I like I don’t know that I would have a good opinion on a lot of the stuff anyway like I’m literally like just out of the tutorial so I haven’t really got to experience the open world side of things yet like I’ve just been going from story mission.
(0:02:53) Jonnie: To story mission and it’s been a lot of like sort of scripted events going on so
(0:02:58) Jonnie: I assume that stuff is pretty well like designed and locked down but yeah other than that I think it’s like to me to me it feels good but we’ll see how that holds up. What was the the main the main thrust of the controversy?
(0:03:10) Codey: - Okay.
(0:03:13) Codey: I think it was just that it was so poorly did like,
(0:03:17) Codey: it came, when it came out, it was not good.
(0:03:19) Codey: Like it was a very laggy, it was just poor quality,
(0:03:24) Codey: kept like crashing on people, like that kind of thing.
(0:03:28) Codey: And I know that some people had like waited a year or so to like try it again.
(0:03:34) Codey: And then even when they tried it again, it was not great.
(0:03:37) Codey: Um…
(0:03:37) Jonnie: yeah I would say like so far I haven’t had any lag issues but also it’s been a lot of like heavily instanced combat with like a very low number of entities involved so like I don’t know that i’ve really there hasn’t been a lot of opportunities for the game to really chug um so I will reserve judgment on that i’m also not the sort of person that I think really gets as affected by that as And some people do.
(0:04:05) Jonnie: So.
(0:04:07) Codey: cool. Yeah, I’ve never played it. It’s not, I don’t know. I’m glad you’re enjoying it. Um, I have been playing Disney Dreamlight Valley’s newest, uh, DLC, not DLC, free update,
(0:04:12) Jonnie: Yeah. Should be good. Should be good. What have you been up to?
(0:04:25) Codey: which we’ll talk about later. I’ve been playing Minecraft, um, continuing the Fox journey.
(0:04:31) Codey: I’ve actually been doing a lot of farming in Minecraft because I need bone meal to dye dye my terracotta white so that I can finish the fox’s t-
(0:04:37) Codey: tail. So I’ve actually been doing a lot of farming in Minecraft. I let’s see those two games, my coloring game on my phone as per usual. And then just a lot of research. A lot of research stuff, PhD stuff. Also started working at the coffee shop again. So extra money whoop whoop. Pretty stoked. I have three tattoos. I’m getting…
(0:05:07) Codey: three tattoos within a nine-day span here in a couple within the next like 12 days.
(0:05:13) Codey: I just have so many appointments and it’s all like some of one of them I’ve had booked since like December and I’ve had I’ve been saving money for it and stuff like that.
(0:05:22) Codey: But the other one there’s apprentices and they don’t they need to like
(0:05:27) Codey: learn how to do stuff or whatever and
(0:05:30) Codey: so they just have really cheap. All the tattoos are fairly inexpensive.
(0:05:35) Codey: good quality, but
(0:05:37) Codey: it’s their first time tattooing, so…
(0:05:38) Jonnie: are they are they good quality how do you know that’s their first time definitely that would give me such a level of anxiety
(0:05:39) Codey: so, so when you’re a tattoo- when you’re a tattoo apprentice, you tattoo on fake skin first, and so I have- I’ve seen like their fake skin tattoo, like, stuff, which- fake skin is pretty accurate, but it doesn’t do the same like bleeding stuff that skin does, um, and then I’ve seen their art, so I know what they’re capable of, like,
(0:06:07) Codey: drawing and shading and like doing all of that, and then the next stage after that you fake skin is heels, so like the heel of your foot, the bottom heel part of the heel of your foot, um, they tattoo that, and I’ve gotten seven heels done so far, because after like two weeks, it just sluffs off, like the skin just flakes off and it takes the ink with it, um, so, you know, every time my heel becomes bare, or I just go back in, and I just- you- it’s a dollar, because they have to legally have exchanged money for insurance purposes, um, and I just let the apprentice do whatever it is they need to be practicing, um, so for a while it was color, and then it was line art, and then it was black and gray, and then now one of the apprentices has a customer wants them, or a client wants them to do this like dagger with smoke, or whatever, so they designed this smoke thing, and then they tried it on my foot to like see if they if they could do it, and they were like, oh, this part, this part’s good, but this other part I need to do something different, and so they’re gonna work on on doing that. So yeah, I’ve just been like, going in, it’s this is, it’s the artist I always go to, and then her two apprentices, both apprentices are amazing, one of them does color realism and illustrative, and she has a really pretty fox that she’s like drawn and put on her Instagram. So I literally told her I was like, I can budget two hundred dollars, you can have this much of my arm, and I just want it to be a fox. And other than that, it’s completely up to you. Like, I don’t care what it looks like, like what the design is what the posture is or whatever, I want it to be realism or illustrative, and it can either be color, it could be black and gray, it could be whatever you want. So that’s in a week, less than a week, that’s in six days. I just show up and I’m like, cool, put it on my arm. And I told the other apprentice, they have the same deal in next month.
(0:08:07) Codey: Because I can only do one a month for money reasons. Same deal, 200 bucks, black and gray illustrative bug, because they really like bugs. And that’s gonna go on my leg. So really excited about all that. So next time I’m on the pot, I’m going to be have a lot more art on my body. I am pretty excited. And I’m thinking of more, but I need to save my So this is like my final push of like, get art while I can afford it slash, like, before I just like shut down my extra curricular spending. Because I’ve been these are good humans, and I’ve been getting helping them out for a while, and I just want to get some art before they before I’m done. So that’s what we’ve been up to.
(0:09:07) Codey: So this is the complete edition for Harvest Moon One World.
(0:09:12) Codey: It’s the base game, plus all of the DLC is now available, question mark.
(0:09:20) Codey: Becoming available.
(0:09:21) Codey: Oh, it’s a pre-order.
(0:09:22) Codey: So if you pre-order it, you can pre-order it right now, and it’s for 30 bucks available on Switch.
(0:09:29) Codey: Gives you the full game and all previously released DLC in one package, and you also Look at this, what they call adorable Yeti plush.
(0:09:37) Codey: I, I disagree.
(0:09:38) Jonnie: Yeah, that’s not an accurate description of this plush.
(0:09:44) Codey: Uh, I don’t know, I, I wouldn’t get this.
(0:09:48) Jonnie: The plush is so There’s been this trend with
(0:09:53) Jonnie: Cottagecore games and doing plushes because they do you know, Cottagecore games generally do cute creatures. I
(0:10:01) Jonnie: think recently there has been a trend towards these plushes looking low quality and
(0:10:07) Jonnie: This is a huge offender in this this has elements that are in the direction of cute
(0:10:13) Jonnie: but ultimately the plush looks cheap and
(0:10:17) Jonnie: That it kind of just attracts
(0:10:18) Jonnie: from it being being a little cutie and it’s unfortunate but I think this is an example of whatever you are going to do you know around your game in your game you got to do it well and this is not done.
(0:10:32) Codey: Yeah, this is just not spark joy.
(0:10:35) Codey: Yeah.
(0:10:36) Codey: So that is up for pre-order on switch.
(0:10:40) Codey: So but Al also wrote online store not actually working.
(0:10:45) Codey: Don’t know what that means, but hopefully it’s working when you are hearing this and when you can download or you can pre-order this game.
(0:10:54) Codey: Our next bit of news ever after falls is releasing on June 20th.
(0:10:58) Codey: So I had to look this up because I was like, I don’t know if I’ve ever looked up this game
(0:11:02) Codey: before.
(0:11:03) Codey: So quote ever after falls is a mix of Stardew Valley, Harvest Moon, Animal Crossing with some action RPG elements found in the dungeons.
(0:11:12) Codey: And when you watch the trailer within the first like two seconds, you get hit by a car.
(0:11:21) Codey: And that was shocking.
(0:11:23) Codey: So yeah, there’s new cooking content that you can read about, read some other stuff online, like there seems like they’ve.
(0:11:33) Codey: Had some stuff that they’ve been working on. It looks really cute!
(0:11:37) Codey: This might be something I get on Switch.
(0:11:40) Codey: Have you looked at this at all? So it’s available on all platforms, so it’ll be PC, Mac, Linux, Switch, Xbox, and PlayStation.
(0:11:47) Codey: What are your thoughts about this, Johnny?
(0:11:50) Jonnie: yeah I i mean I had a glance at it when I saw it in the news um unfortunately for me again this looks cheap you know um it looks low quality and I get it’s indie developer but i’m you know and it’s just even little things like the description right where they you know compare themselves to as a mix between three really high quality games um and it’s it’s not right like it’s just not going to be a mix between those three.
(0:12:20) Jonnie: And I ultimately think games like this do themselves a disservice by pretending that they’re something that they’re not, because they’ve said the buzzwords of the popular things in the genre. So I don’t know that this is necessarily something that I am interested in,
(0:12:40) Jonnie: like I hope it’s good and I hope it’s people that, you know, people are excited about it, but
(0:12:46) Jonnie: um I don’t really see anything here to be
(0:12:51) Codey: I mean, I think it looks cute.
(0:12:53) Codey: I might give it a shot.
(0:12:54) Codey: We’ll see when in June.
(0:12:56) Codey: We’ll see how I feel in June after I’ve spent $400 plus on tattoos.
(0:13:02) Codey: My bank account might be screaming.
(0:13:04) Codey: Uh, the next bit of news is Starstruck Vagabond is releasing on May 24th, 2024.
(0:13:11) Codey: Yep.
(0:13:12) Jonnie: I am very excited for this one.
(0:13:12) Codey: That’s.
(0:13:14) Codey: Oh, okay.
(0:13:15) Jonnie: So Star Trek, Star Trek Vagabond. Yeah, for those who don’t remember this is the game that’s produced by or developed by,
(0:13:15) Codey: Uh, tell, tell us about that.
(0:13:23) Jonnie: I don’t know what the right word is. It’s the Yahtzee
(0:13:26) Codey: Oh, I forgot
(0:13:26) Jonnie: Crucial game.
(0:13:28) Jonnie: Yeah, most people forget because the name is not the greatest, right? And there’s like a few other games that have a similar
(0:13:34) Jonnie: similar sounding name that have come out now
(0:13:37) Jonnie: but this is the one that
(0:13:40) Jonnie: they are producing
(0:13:42) Jonnie: Yahtzee does, what was the name of the series, it was
(0:13:47) Jonnie: he does a version of Angry Man yells at those angry game reviews but he has generally I think quite good taste in games
(0:13:57) Jonnie: and I know there was a whole thing about the company, zero punctuation, there we go
(0:13:58) Codey: it zero punctuation and it was basically because he would talk so fast there was no punctuation but then it was like also audit like illustrated was really cool
(0:14:07) Jonnie: Yes.
(0:14:12) Jonnie: » Yeah, but he I think has like generally I would say a taste in games that lines up with my taste, which is a part of the reason I like his reviews. And Star Trek Vagabond is,
(0:14:28) Jonnie: I guess space delivery is kind of the theme of the game. I guess to put the vibes of the game,
(0:14:38) Jonnie: the closest thing I can imagine or the closest
(0:14:42) Jonnie: thing that I kind of get vibes from whenever I look at this game is um oh my god the name of it just walked out of my head that like 2d pixel-ish RPG that everyone frost over like seven or eight years ago um that has like the skeletons pardon no no no it has the skeletons like the the RPG um oh my god so many people are gonna be yelling it
(0:14:56) Codey: Stardew Valley.
(0:14:57) Codey: Stardew Valley.
(0:15:04) Codey: 2D skeleton RPG game, Dead Heroes.
(0:15:07) Codey: Dead Heroes.
(0:15:08) Jonnie: No.
(0:15:10) Jonnie: Ah, God.
(0:15:12) Jonnie: It’s like, are you like, you’re like the daughter of a cow, and like…
(0:15:16) Codey: Skeleton Crew.
(0:15:17) Jonnie: No, no, scale of this.
(0:15:18) Codey: Daughter of a cow.
(0:15:20) Jonnie: Um, what were the names of the cows? I think that one was like, what’s one papyrus?
(0:15:25) Jonnie: Undertale. There we go.
(0:15:28) Jonnie: It’s like, I didn’t realize how ridiculous that game is to explain until I totally lost the thread of what the name of the game was. And in no way is Starstruck Mega 1 like, similar to Undertale.
(0:15:28) Codey: Okay.
(0:15:42) Jonnie: It’s just the vibe is like, I don’t know, to me it feels similar-ish.
(0:15:49) Jonnie: I guess in that it’s like a weird, similar-ish art style.
(0:15:55) Jonnie: Yeah, I don’t know. Maybe it’s more my expectations for this game is that it’s going to be weird.
(0:16:00) Jonnie: To be honest, I don’t even know if it’s going to fit in the definition of Cottagecore,
(0:16:03) Jonnie: but I will definitely be trying it.
(0:16:06) Jonnie: Don’t we say the news? The news is that it’s coming out on May 24th. It’s very exciting.
(0:16:10) Codey: yes yes I think we I said the news and then I was said I was underwhelmed and then you reminded me that it’s Yahtzee
(0:16:17) Jonnie: And then I went on a wild fever dream for like five minutes.
(0:16:21) Codey: yeah which is good it’s good it’s good yeah so I’m excited to hear more or see more about this for sure Disney Dreamlight Valley so the update and the free update, thrills and frills, and the second app.
(0:16:41) Codey: There’s also really detailed patch notes online.
(0:16:48) Codey: Have you jumped back into this at all?
(0:16:50) Jonnie: No, I’m kind of like, so I hit credits on DDV and I kind of feel like I did everything that I wanted to in that game.
(0:17:05) Jonnie: Like I know that they will continue to add characters and they do a, you know, a really good job with the storytelling as we’ve talked about in the interactions between those characters.
(0:17:14) Jonnie: But ultimately, I think I feel that the player’s place in the game is kind of…
(0:17:20) Jonnie: Lost and lacking and a lot of this for me comes back to the customization of the Valley itself.
(0:17:29) Jonnie: It’s just so limited and so bad, you know, like having to put all of these houses down.
(0:17:36) Jonnie: They’re big, they’re kind of ugly, they take up a ton of space.
(0:17:41) Jonnie: You know, I think I just hit that point where it’s like, I kind of just hit, you know, the point where it’s like, it’s the grind of the game.
(0:17:48) Jonnie: And that wasn’t really pulling me in.
(0:17:50) Jonnie: And kind of because I hit credits and like the main story around your character is really good, right?
(0:17:55) Jonnie: I really like that story, but I finished that story. Yeah, you know, I don’t have a strong need to
(0:17:56) Codey: Mm-hmm, yes.
(0:18:04) Jonnie: To come back and it’s like I’m not a I’m not a Disney freak right like it’s you know, I like Disney
(0:18:12) Jonnie: But I don’t just want Disney for the sake of Disney And I think that’s where the game is at now is like if you’re if you’re a Disney freak and you’re into all of that
(0:18:21) Jonnie: Cool, like this is this is a game that’s producing content for you
(0:18:25) Jonnie: But if you’re a fan of like a good game, not sure that the longevity is there with D.V.
(0:18:30) Codey: Yeah, I’m still, I still play it every day because I really want to complete the characters that I have up to their max level.
(0:18:38) Jonnie: Yeah, cuz you’re a Disney freak [laughs]
(0:18:40) Codey: I mean, I’m not really, uh, like, I don’t even really like read the quest text usually.
(0:18:50) Codey: I usually will like glimpse it and be like, okay, yeah, cool.
(0:18:55) Codey: He’s mad at this other character for reasons and he wants to make, make up with that person and he wants these.
(0:19:00) Codey: He needs these things to build a thing to–
(0:19:03) Codey: well, like, I’m just like, cool, I get it.
(0:19:06) Codey: I just– I like the mechanics in the game,
(0:19:09) Codey: and it’s really gratifying, and I’m, like, pretty.
(0:19:13) Codey: It also gives percents on a lot of the achievement things that you can do.
(0:19:17) Codey: And so, like, I see that I’m, you know,
(0:19:19) Codey: almost done with some of the achievements.
(0:19:21) Codey: And so that’s the biggest thing, is it’s like–
(0:19:24) Codey: it tickles my brain.
(0:19:25) Codey: I can jump on for, like, 10 minutes and go harvest a couple plants.
(0:19:31) Codey: And make progress towards my achievement of harvesting 900 coconuts, or whatever the heck I’m working on right now.
(0:19:40) Jonnie: I think that’s where I got to as well. I probably just finished the game when a lot of that content was new, so I did a lot of that stuff. I did as much of it as was in the game at the time, and now that they’re adding more of those grinds to do, I just don’t necessarily feel the pull to be like, “Oh yeah, I absolutely need to go and do more of that.” But I totally get the desire to, when you’re in the throws of it, to be like, “Yeah, I do need to go in and do a lot of that stuff right, ‘cause that’s-
(0:20:00) Codey: Mm-hmm. That’s fair.
(0:20:10) Jonnie: how our brains are wired now.
(0:20:12) Codey: Yep. Yeah. So they’re new. Um, I’m also going to be honest. I,
(0:20:16) Codey: so one of the new things in the thrills and frills is they add Daisy Duck and they add her boutique.
(0:20:22) Codey: And then in part of the boutique challenge, you’re supposed to like up or like not upload,
(0:20:26) Codey: but display one of your, um, things that you want displayed, I guess.
(0:20:34) Codey: And it is not clear where you find all of that stuff. So I was trying to figure out how to do
(0:20:42) Codey: in her boutique, but then I realized, like I, I just finally googled it.
(0:20:46) Codey: Cause I was like, heck this, I don’t want to like keep trying to figure this out and getting lost.
(0:20:52) Codey: So I googled it and apparently like in the wardrobe screen, like the first button that I’ve always just like skipped over in my brain is a customize button.
(0:21:02) Codey: You can literally customize and create your own designs of everything with the motifs that you’ve been getting and like I remember getting all those motifs
(0:21:12) Codey: like every time you level up a character they sometimes every now and then it gives you a like little motif. And I’m like,
(0:21:16) Codey: I have no idea what to use this for. It’s not clear to me. And it’s because you can customize and create your own furniture and your own wardrobe. And this is not a new thing. This has been in the game. And it was exactly. It’s not very for people. I don’t know. I never looked at it. And so you So you basically create that, like you customize
(0:21:24) Jonnie: What?
(0:21:29) Jonnie: I have never come across this feature at all.
(0:21:42) Codey: your own things, it gives you like a base shirt to use or whatever.
(0:21:45) Codey: And then you can choose a color, choose a motif to throw on it.
(0:21:48) Codey: And then you put that on a mannequin in the boutique and then voila,
(0:21:54) Codey: you’ve completed part of that quest.
(0:21:56) Codey: Another thing that she has, this is, this is my PSA to listeners because I could not figure this out for like a half an hour today.
(0:22:04) Codey: And I was getting really grumpy.
(0:22:07) Codey: Uh, she has these boutique daily challenges where you basically go up
(0:22:12) Codey: to the daily challenge and she’s like, I want shoes and seating that are black with a calm vibe and a casual vibe.
(0:22:23) Codey: And this other thing, like it basically gives you criterion to, to do.
(0:22:29) Codey: And so then I was like, okay, cool.
(0:22:30) Codey: So I’m going to use the touch of magic.
(0:22:32) Codey: I’m going to create a piece of seating that matches the black, whatever,
(0:22:35) Codey: like the black part of the challenge or whatever, and then put it on a pedestal.
(0:22:40) Codey: Wrong.
(0:22:42) Codey: You’re supposed to put it on the wooden platform that’s to the left of the door.
(0:22:46) Codey: So when you enter the boutique there’s this wooden platform on the left that is where you’re supposed to display the things that you’re using for your boutique daily challenge.
(0:22:53) Codey: So I kept putting this black chair that I made and then I kept changing the motif and changing the color and removing glossiness and like trying to do all these different things to make it match but like the check marks in the um like quest whatever wasn’t It was like, nope, you still haven’t given her a black chair.
(0:23:12) Codey: And I’m like, there’s a black chair right here.
(0:23:13) Codey: I don’t know what to do.
(0:23:15) Codey: Um, so that was annoying, but when I finally figured it out, that was nice.
(0:23:20) Codey: And then it also doesn’t have to be stuff that you have designed.
(0:23:22) Codey: So she’ll be like, I want a bed that’s blue.
(0:23:26) Codey: Um, and I don’t have the base bed, like template.
(0:23:31) Codey: So I just put a blue bed on the, on the wooden platform.
(0:23:35) Codey: And she was like, it’s lovely.
(0:23:37) Codey: That’s like sweet.
(0:23:38) Codey: And from doing those you get these like daisy
(0:23:42) Codey: points or whatever and then using those points you can buy new templates to be able to design your own stuff which I think is cool but yeah we’ll see also the star path they have a new star path called a day at Disney it’s very underwhelming I went through all the I looked through all of the rewards and I was like I really don’t care about any of this actually so I might accidentally do some of the quests for that and get the rewards but
(0:24:12) Codey: then use the rewards to reward points to like cash in for free moonstone but I’m I’m not doing much of that. I’ve also never been to Disneyland so getting like the teacup ride or whatever is just not I don’t care I genuinely don’t care. Next up Song of the Prairie this is the 0.8 update is out now so again this this isn’t really access update, they’ve added.
(0:24:42) Codey: they’ve added new festivals, they’ve added the ability to do marriage, there’s a bunch of bug fixes.
(0:24:48) Codey: Yep, that’s about it.
(0:24:52) Codey: I’m not entirely sure of their timeline on when they’re going to get to 1.0, but they are not there yet.
(0:24:57) Jonnie: Yeah, I don’t know that I’ve heard much about
(0:25:00) Jonnie: when they were planning to
(0:25:03) Jonnie: Do a 1.0 release. I would say like, you know, I talk a lot about these games needing to have, you know, a unique
(0:25:11) Jonnie: Lens or a unique element and kind of feeling played out this this game does have like quite a nice
(0:25:18) Jonnie: Look and feel to it
(0:25:21) Jonnie: Like so there’s nothing I don’t know that’s super unique about the art style itself
(0:25:27) Jonnie: But the character is like quite small relative to everything in the world And I don’t know there’s something about that that I find quite visually appealing
(0:25:36) Jonnie: And I like the little animations and stuff in this game look really good So it’s not something that I think I would play in early access But this is one that has my attention for when they decide to go into 1.0
(0:25:48) Codey: uh cannot relate but glad that you’re looking forward to it um next up is farming simulator which we’ve played um the farm production pack is out now for farming simulator 22 uh it is very vague about what this includes um even on the like page for it when you go to it it just says production equipment storage options. It keeps
(0:26:18) Codey: showing like a forklift and a warehouse and stuff like that,
(0:26:22) Codey: but it is, but then when you go to their page, it’s like new playthings, but it doesn’t have like a list of here are the things that you get like here are the but there’s just a bunch of pictures of forklifts. So.
(0:26:36) Jonnie: I mean this is just one for the farming simulator sickos right?
(0:26:39) Jonnie: All they do is they just push out new stuff and farming simulator sickos love it and everyone else just like this is not going to make the game any different than it was before so if you weren’t interested in farming simulator you are still no longer interested in farming simulator.
(0:26:53) Jonnie: That is the that is the takeaway from this.
(0:26:54) Codey: Yeah, I think the cool thing that I do enjoy about it is that it includes, it adds vending machines market stalls, a supermarket and a farm store.
(0:27:03) Codey: And it looks like you can have a like bakery store on it.
(0:27:08) Codey: You can probably, you can do like a farm, like a little, your own little farm stand instead of having to go up to the harvest market farm stand.
(0:27:15) Codey: That’s up like pretty far away from your house, um, so you can make your own, but yeah, I’m
(0:27:24) Codey: looks like, uh, it does appear as though farming simulator 22 is now forklift certified though.
(0:27:30) Codey: So we’ll see, um, if you’ve, if you are going to play it, let us know.
(0:27:34) Codey: Next game is echoes of plum grove of the plum grove.
(0:27:38) Codey: Um, it is says that it is out now, um, and they are just starting to roll out some updates.
(0:27:48) Codey: So there are some upcoming features that they’ve acknowledged, um, that they’re going to do,
(0:27:54) Codey: controller support bug fixes, verifying for steam deck, family tree menu, um, I don’t know what inoculate your family means.
(0:28:02) Jonnie: It means exactly exactly what that word means
(0:28:06) Jonnie: So I don’t know how much you’ve looked into efforts of the grove of the plum grove
(0:28:09) Codey: I have not, I have not.
(0:28:11) Jonnie: So so cat and our slack has been playing it and putting some
(0:28:16) Jonnie: Some some thoughts of the game In there and we were talking about it and I got a little bit interested in so I watched the trailer and it’s like You know go on and do some farming and then like you’re like, oh this is this looks really cute and then all of a sudden the trailer cuts to
(0:28:30) Jonnie: Survive winter
(0:28:32) Jonnie: Survive diseases grow old and die
(0:28:37) Jonnie: It turns very grim the premise of this game is
(0:28:42) Jonnie: It seems to be more generational and more about trying to survive in the long run So inoculating from diseases as diseases are part of this game that you know I don’t fully understand how why or when they
(0:28:59) Jonnie: when they appear, but they are absolutely
(0:29:02) Jonnie: part of this game. So inoculation is obviously just protecting your fan from disease.
(0:29:10) Jonnie: So that’s what this game is. I’m not sure if I’m more or less interested following
(0:29:12) Codey: wild
(0:29:18) Codey: What cat said
(0:29:19) Jonnie: what Cat said, but it’s interesting to see a game with a bit of a dark
(0:29:26) Jonnie: tinge to it that’s coming in.
(0:29:28) Jonnie: So
(0:29:32) Codey: that is pretty wild oh but Al did go on a rant about controller support and I do he ends it with oops sorry that was a long rant you don’t need to read this whole thing out verbatim challenge accepted I’m gonna read it out verbatim quote so this is this comment is where it says includes controller support so So quote, this is from Al,
(0:29:32) Jonnie: Yeah, so that’s Echoes of the Plumb Grove.
(0:30:02) Codey: point controller support should be in your 1.0 release not after. I actually think it should be in your first early access release. It’s an accessibility feature and also the Steam Deck is now so commonly used that you should just have it before your first public version. Build it from the start and it’s much easier anyway. Trying to add in after you’ve already built the game is just so much work but if you treat it like something you need right at the start and every time you add a keyboard binding you do it in a more generic way. There are libraries to make this easier then then it’s so much easier.
(0:30:32) Codey: of life and land has a new updated roadmap they say hey settlers in addition to some quality of life updates from the editor for the editor we would
(0:30:45) Jonnie: I don’t know, it’s not something you think about or care about.
(0:31:02) Codey: like to present our roadmap to you so they have short term midterm and long term short term is new fish species and a simulation overhaul I’m trying to remember I wonder if it’s new fish species because they only had four I’m trying to remember if this is the game that only had four the simulation overhaul includes visible dirt simulation visible water simulation a UI worker overview better mod support tutorial additions more map
(0:31:32) Codey: midterm roadmap includes new biome and animals and a new simulation error layer it adds desert plants more maps and quests continues the main score story at schools and education and then long-term is second scenario and unique homes and animals so you it has a complete revision to the tutorial it includes deep water with new buildings new animals better twitch integration and more mod support.
(0:32:00) Codey: Um, and
(0:32:02) Codey: Yeah, just a cute little city builder simulation game that is out now and looks like
(0:32:06) Jonnie: Yeah
(0:32:09) Jonnie: I’m not not big into city builders and simulation games But I feel like there’s been a like a string of these coming out that look interesting enough that I’m like
(0:32:20) Jonnie: Getting tempted to try one out
(0:32:22) Codey: yeah I mean there it’s out it’s in an early access right now but so I’ll probably wait for 1.0 but it does look really cute and it’s been on my radar so I also might try one out Coral Island I can’t remember Johnny have you played Coral Island okay so the 1.1 beta is coming on May 20th there are details in the devlog about the 1.1 updates and there’s a lot of stuff under the sea that is added.
(0:32:39) Jonnie: I have, yep.
(0:32:52) Codey: so they’re adding underwater farming and ranching. I didn’t really look at the farm crops because I don’t really care but the mermues basically a manatee and they look real cute. Al also said spouse is becoming more of a person question mark and I’m not sure if what they’re doing counts they just have vague text bubbles it showed like one of the spouse one of the marriage candidates being like “make sure you eat breakfast” like still in the house still stuck
(0:33:22) Codey: in the house doesn’t count they are not more of a person because they can now say a couple things to you they’ve are also added merfolk romance and they said that’s cool that’s right romance with the merfolk will be available in the 1.1 update who’s the first choice is it Sam Meru or Sameru so the developers clearly have a preference they have a specific character that they are
(0:33:51) Jonnie: I don’t think the developers have a preference, I think they’ve been asked to romance one specific character over and over.
(0:33:52) Codey: oh well he is he is the gruff like the gruff guard leader guy so yeah I guess that’s who everyone’s been clamoring to marry they’ve also added new characters uh and I am in love did you see these characters Johnny I love reading
(0:34:23) Codey: I don’t know how you say their name R Y S I could be Reise I could be Reise I’m gonna say Reise they are she is a tattoo artist she looks amazing she’s all about art over choice I think is what she decides it said so like and it’s kind of how I feel where you go to an artist because you see the work that they’ve done and you basically just give them free choice or at least like the barest of things like I’m doing with my artists look around like I just want it to be a other than that it’s up to you.
(0:34:53) Codey: I would rather support the artist and have the artist do what they want. Every now and then I get a tattoo idea like the one that I’ve paid for the deposit for and everything already that I’m getting in 12 days is I there’s a specific part to it but still I mean the artist could change things or suggest different things and I’ll whatever they whatever she says goes. So I love Risi love that idea. I also love they’re like a stingray and they’re all tatted up. It It is real cool.
(0:35:21) Jonnie: It’s a great character design. Everything about it is 10/10.
(0:35:23) Codey: Yeah.
(0:35:24) Codey: Do you have any other comments about any of the other character design?
(0:35:28) Jonnie: Just on Janoo, who is the half-shark,
(0:35:32) Codey: Mm-hm.
(0:35:33) Jonnie: one of their things is that they’re single and not interested in dating,
(0:35:38) Jonnie: which is just really nice to see that not every single person is available to be romance.
(0:35:45) Jonnie: I don’t know, we talked about it in the Marriage Candidates episode,
(0:35:48) Jonnie: the idea of all people having their own life.
(0:35:51) Jonnie: And I think that’s what I see most coming through.
(0:35:55) Codey: I think two things about Janu so there’s definitely the fact that he owns the tavern and whatever and also the single and not interested in dating quote “he’s content with his life and prefers not to let a relationship complicate things.”
(0:36:09) Codey: Love that.
(0:36:10) Codey: But the fact that he’s a reverse merperson, he’s a shark on top with human leg.
(0:36:16) Codey: I just you don’t really see that very often.
(0:36:19) Codey: And that was pretty cool to see.
(0:36:22) Codey: Another thing that’s coming in the 1.1 that I’m kind of interested in is that the library
(0:36:25) Codey: is now going to start populating with books as you play the game and gain ranks on the island.
(0:36:31) Codey: You get certain perks and you also get like certain perks when you read some of the books.
(0:36:38) Codey: I don’t know what that means but I am intrigued, color me intrigued.
(0:36:42) Codey: And I will be checking that out.
(0:36:45) Codey: Yeah and that’s the news.
(0:36:48) Jonnie: Before we move off the news, I’m going to go on a mini Coral Island rant.
(0:36:56) Jonnie: I know Al has talked about how he sees Coral Island as the successor to Stardew Valley in terms of what the standard is for a Cottagecore game in 2024.
(0:37:09) Jonnie: I think that take is horrendous.
(0:37:12) Jonnie: I have now played enough Coral Island that I think that Coral Island does a lot of really
(0:37:19) Jonnie: in the first 10 to 15 hours, but the drop-off in terms of it being a complete game is so stark, and I think this 1.1 update is a great example of what was missing.
(0:37:33) Jonnie: And I don’t think Al disagrees that Coral Island is an incomplete game.
(0:37:38) Jonnie: They have this whole underwater region that is unfinished, that 1.1 takes some steps towards finishing but I don’t know that it
(0:37:48) Jonnie: makes it feel alive enough I guess we will see you know we’ve talked about how you marry these characters and they become lifeless husks I can’t recall if the the mining quest is finished yet or if that’s part of the 1.1 update or if that’s on the roadmap but the game is unfinished so to say that it is a successor to Stardew Valley which a when it came out was a fully complete fully
(0:38:18) Jonnie: realised game that has consistently added great content to it including like a few weeks ago I just like Coral Island has a lot going for it and it could have been the successor to Stardew Valley but ultimately there are so many big holes in this game that it just cannot be a successor for the baseline standard it It can be the baseline for certain aspects, like, I think it should be the stan-
(0:38:48) Jonnie: standard for character design, not how those characters are then implemented in the world.
(0:38:56) Jonnie: It’s, you know, to me, it’s a good game. But man, it is one of those games that’s like,
(0:39:03) Jonnie: wow, we thought about the start of this game a lot and we put a ton of effort into it.
(0:39:07) Jonnie: And then we decided we need to get this game out so that we can make money, right?
(0:39:10) Jonnie: And not saying that that’s like they made the wrong decision with that, right? You know,
(0:39:14) Jonnie: These are companies that, you know, are producing games in order to keep feeding.
(0:39:18) Jonnie: People in theory and we need to make money, but this is not a fully realized game at this point.
(0:39:24) Jonnie: And so for it to be a successor in the new baseline, to me is just ludicrous.
(0:39:29) Jonnie: Like Stardew Valley is the king of that mountain and Coral Island is not even a convincing pretender to that throw.
(0:39:32) Codey: I will agree that it is not a complete game, but I still prefer Coral Island to Stardew Valley.
(0:39:42) Jonnie: This isn’t even about preference, right? Like, it’s just as the base.
(0:39:46) Jonnie: Like, you can prefer whichever game you want, but to say that Coral Island is like the standard now for a good Cottagecore game, to me is like us rolling over and saying,
(0:40:02) Jonnie: “You don’t need to finish your game. Just release some half-assed piece of crap where you think about the first 30 minutes a lot, and that’s all you need to do. That’s fine. That’s a good game.”
(0:40:06) Codey: Oh my gosh.
(0:40:14) Jonnie: It’s not, right? Like, to me, it’s not.
(0:40:15) Codey: Hot takes.
(0:40:16) Codey: Okay.
(0:40:17) Codey: I mean, yeah?
(0:40:19) Codey: Fair?
(0:40:20) Jonnie: I mean, I just, look, I’m willing to, like, die on this hill. I think Coral Island’s great. I feel like it’s had a lot of love.
(0:40:20) Codey: Hahaha.
(0:40:21) Codey: Yeah.
(0:40:21) Codey: Yeah.
(0:40:26) Jonnie: I just, it needs to be knocked down a bit, because I, so it’s a game where I would struggle to recommend it to someone else because it is not finished.
(0:40:30) Codey: Mm-hmm.
(0:40:34) Jonnie: And I think it’s really important, right, when, when, for me, when I’m putting my credibility on the line, and it’s funny.
(0:40:42) Jonnie: It’s not real credibility. It’s just, like, some fake credibility. But if I’m, if I’m advocating for something, there is a certain, you know, level that I would want it to be at.
(0:40:48) Codey: Mmhmm.
(0:40:54) Jonnie: And for me, the worst thing would be, like, you know, I recommend this game to someone, and they get away with it, and they’re like, “I was having a really good time.”
(0:41:00) Jonnie: And then the game, like, ended. But, but I hadn’t, but the game wasn’t, wasn’t finished. And, you know, it’s this whole, it’s…
(0:41:03) Codey: Mm-hmm.
(0:41:04) Codey: Mm-hmm.
(0:41:12) Jonnie: It’s part of the sickness that has overtaken video games of what it now means for a game to be released, where a game can be in 1.0, in an unfinished state, and be out there in the market.
(0:41:26) Jonnie: And it’s, you know, it’s not there, right? And this is a sickness that is wider than cottagecore games. It’s across all games, but we need to kind of get back to, like, the idea of, “I won’t recommend this game until it’s finished.”
(0:41:40) Jonnie: I’m like this whole conversation. I’d be looking at
(0:41:43) Jonnie: I don’t even know what it is. This this ocean thing where there’s like some turtles dancing and stuff. I’m like, it’s super freaking cute, right?
(0:41:49) Jonnie: Like I want this game to be the thing that knocks it off the knocks stardew off the top of the mountain really likes the coral island.
(0:41:57) Jonnie: I just wish it didn’t have so many holes in it. And if this was a, you know, zero point eight update as they move towards their full release, I probably would be a lot more comfortable with it.
(0:42:09) Jonnie: And maybe the answer is it doesn’t really matter, right?
(0:42:11) Jonnie: Like it’s all the same thing.
(0:42:12) Jonnie: Um, I guess for me, it’s just important that for as positively as we speak about the show on Coral Island,
(0:42:20) Jonnie: that people that come in and play kind of get the, you know, it’s good for 10, 15 hours, right?
(0:42:26) Jonnie: It’s good to play through to all the end of summer.
(0:42:28) Jonnie: Um, I don’t think it’s good to put like, you know, if you want to put four years into a game,
(0:42:33) Jonnie: go put that time into Stardew Valley, it’s a much more complete game.
(0:42:36) Codey: It’s a good, good take. I mean, I kind of agree. Like, I kind of feel like if people if someone was to tell me, oh, I really like story, and that’s my biggest draw to games, I would probably not recommend coral. I would not recommend coral island right now. But just like I do enjoy the the gameplay itself. And, and yeah, but I also haven’t, like, finished. I don’t think I finished the mines yet. It did finish the the merfolk area. And it did the fact that it just stopped was really weird but yeah.
(0:43:06) Codey: That’s the news. Whoo!
(0:43:09) Jonnie: Whoo, I feel like I’m in like this like very ranty like slightly negative mood about everything today. So
(0:43:18) Codey: Is that going to continue into Rusty’s retirement?
(0:43:20) Jonnie: Let’s find out
(0:43:23) Codey: Rusty’s retirement.
(0:43:25) Codey: Uh, Johnny, where are you at in this game?
(0:43:28) Codey: How long have you played this game?
(0:43:31) Codey: If you were to give it a brief rating, what would you say?
(0:43:36) Jonnie: uh I guess how long you’ve played it is a weird question because it’s an idle game um so in terms of how far I am I have unlocked the like i’ve unlocked a new farm type um so on the first farm i’ve built all the buildings i’ve unlocked maybe 70 percent of the crops um i’ve unlocked all of the the land that you can build on uh so i’m very much like endgame on the first floor.
(0:44:06) Jonnie: I’ve just unlocked the second farm.
(0:44:08) Jonnie: And just starting the second farm.
(0:44:08) Codey: - On the first, what?
(0:44:10) Jonnie: So there are multiple, kind of like how Stardew has different starting farms.
(0:44:10) Codey: On the what?
(0:44:14) Jonnie: There are different farms in Rusty’s retirement.
(0:44:18) Jonnie: And so I’ve just unlocked the second farm.
(0:44:22) Codey: I didn’t even know that was a thing.
(0:44:23) Codey: Wow.
(0:44:24) Codey: Okay, and then a quick,
(0:44:28) Codey: your quick like elevators pitch of how good it is or bad.
(0:44:34) Jonnie: Like, if I- I would not-
(0:44:36) Jonnie: be able to put a number on this game, because I like the game. It is pitched as an idle game,
(0:44:44) Jonnie: I do not think it’s an idle game, and I want it to be an idle game, which kind of leaves me in this weird space where I like it, but I want it to be something different than what it is, and I think ultimately what the game is is significantly worse than what I do.
(0:45:06) Jonnie: This has the progression mechanics of an idle game, where you unlock things over time, things progressively cost more and more, all great. The pace at which this game moves, and I said this
(0:45:28) Jonnie: when I played the demo as well, is I felt the pace in the demo was too fast, and that applies to
(0:45:36) Jonnie: this game as well. Typically, I find in idle games, the cost of things scales up, and yes,
(0:45:43) Jonnie: your automation scales up, but generally it takes you longer and longer to unlock things. I think that’s generally true, but it feels longer in terms of a span of minutes rather than a span of hours or days, which is really what I’m looking for from an idle game. This requires too much attention and I feel like it’s something
(0:46:06) Jonnie: that I have to do more actively play rather than something that I could play alongside doing work or doing something else.
(0:46:14) Jonnie: I even had to shut it down for doing this podcast because it would just be a lot to do on the side, a lot of clicking, a lot of distraction and you know so to me it’s pitched as an idle game but I don’t think it is one.
(0:46:32) Codey: hmm okay um I guess my perspective my gameplay whatever I’ve been playing it for about two hours and I’ve unlocked two of the buildings ten of the crops and have not expanded at all and for me like I have been using it as an idle game um I did
(0:47:02) Codey: some some stuff like I was researching stuff for the podcast I was looking up games that are on gamepass like while it was running in the background and even now as we talk like i’m I can talk to you and then I glance over and I have you know some bots that are automating things for me so all I really have to do is plant things when I see empty spaces and that’s literally all I have to do so to me that is idle like I don’t it’s not requiring me to pay constant attention to it and even
(0:47:32) Codey: if I don’t like pay attention to it right away I mean I don’t I don’t feel like I’m missing out you know like I don’t know I just don’t really even if I were to come back and they’re all just chillin I’m just like oh well you know
(0:47:50) Jonnie: Yeah, I think that’s the issue though, right? So for me, what happens, probably I think at sort of the next stage of the game, beyond where you are, is you can leave it for a while,
(0:48:03) Jonnie: right? You can do exactly what you said, and what happens over time is eventually all of the crops that you’ve got planted will be fully watered and harvested, and then there’ll be nothing, like literally nothing is happening on your farm, which…
(0:48:13) Codey: Mm-hmm.
(0:48:20) Jonnie: To me, it’s kind of one of the flaws, right? Because, you know, to me in an idle game,
(0:48:24) Jonnie: part of the core is that you’re always making some amount of progress. It might be slower because you haven’t upgraded stuff appropriately or whatever it might be,
(0:48:34) Jonnie: but you know, while you’re idling, you’re in theory making some amount of progress.
(0:48:39) Codey: So have you not gotten Splunk’s house yet, then?
(0:48:42) Jonnie: So this is the other way. So I had that sort of feeling, so I prioritized getting Splunk’s house,
(0:48:47) Jonnie: This one is the…
(0:48:50) Jonnie: I’m a planning automation guy, and as soon as I got him, the game was kind of over, right?
(0:48:56) Jonnie: Because I could idle and I come back and I basically have the equivalent of like infinite money.
(0:49:00) Jonnie: And so then it was no longer a blocker.
(0:49:04) Jonnie: Like there were some blockers in terms of some other resources that you get in the late game.
(0:49:08) Jonnie: That would just take a little bit of time to get.
(0:49:12) Jonnie: But again, when I say a little bit of time, you know, it’s the…
(0:49:14) Jonnie: It’s like I could leave it for an hour and come back and kind of have enough stuff too
(0:49:20) Jonnie: to progress. And like the reason I moved on to the next farm is I was like, yeah, I’ve got some more crops and stuff to do, but I’ve kind of unlocked everything on the farm, like there’s no goals to work towards anymore.
(0:49:35) Jonnie: So it’s just missing that, like, I think the start is easily the strongest part because it has that really good idle game start where you unlock some some good early automation, you’re unlocking some new crops, you’re kind of getting all of that stuff.
(0:49:50) Jonnie: And that’s kind of a drop off in terms of, you know, hitting that good rhythm as an idle game. It’s not there. And I’ve played, you know, for I’ve had it installed for three days, four days, something like that.
(0:50:03) Jonnie: And I’ve achieved everything is how it feels. And for me, an idle game is like I want to be like, you know, where’s that thing that’s like, oh, my God, how am I ever going to get 200 billion spare parts to unlock this building?
(0:50:16) Codey: Yeah…
(0:50:18) Jonnie: Like, where is that?
(0:50:21) Codey: Yeah, so when you buy the new farm or like do the new farm or whatever, do you take anything with you?
(0:50:28) Jonnie: No, so it’s a entirely fresh. Yeah, and the new farms do have some amount of like
(0:50:29) Codey: It’s a hole. Okay.
(0:50:36) Jonnie: The restrictions of the farm have unlocked as a it’s got rivers and lakes running through it Which means you have to think about how you lay things out in a different way
(0:50:45) Jonnie: I know one of the later farms is like I think plants like if they don’t get watered quickly enough or die so it’s probably like a little bit of a tension from a
(0:50:56) Jonnie: automation perspective, which.
(0:50:58) Jonnie: It sounds fine and maybe slows down the progress somewhat.
(0:51:04) Jonnie: But again, that’s like leaning towards a more active engagement with the game, not an idle game.
(0:51:10) Codey: Yeah. That’s fair. Um, I mean, I’m for a, for a little $5 game. I’m in love. Uh, okay.
(0:51:19) Codey: Well, let’s talk about the mechanics a little bit. So I think that, um, so basically like the game like throws you in right away. Um, I didn’t get a tutorial at all, um, which didn’t bother me because I, it kind of makes you, there’s not like too much, it’s not too overwhelming to to figure out right at the gate.
(0:51:40) Codey: So I was fine with that, but basically it’s a game that sits at the bottom of your screen and you just kind of like the idle part is that you don’t have to actively be doing stuff as you automate things you basically put seeds in a ground and then rusty who is the robot that you’re helping or help.
(0:52:02) Codey: I’m not entirely sure. He plants the stuff for you.
(0:52:10) Codey: And then he waters it and harvests it and does everything with it. There’s also a biofuel generator. So, and then you can prioritize his that on the on the toolbar there’s like a priority task list for him.
(0:52:24) Codey: And I think that that list is a really good explanation of the game mechanics.
(0:52:30) Codey: So you can basically tell him do these things in this order and those there’s five of them. There’s move, which is to move things.
(0:52:40) Codey: So as you get more things, as you automate more things, you might want to restructure, reorganize things. So he just he moves it for you.
(0:52:52) Codey: I will say you can’t move something within the same blocks, if that makes sense. So if you have something and you’re trying to move it just a smidge to the right, it’s not going to let you do that because it’s the that land is still quote unquote taken by that item.
(0:53:10) Codey: It’s like restricted. So you have to like, for example, I wanted to move something to a different area and I had to move it like really like multiple blocks over and then I could move it to where I wanted it but moving is very fast.
(0:53:22) Codey: He just picks it up and walks it over. So, not that big of a deal.
(0:53:28) Codey: There’s also building. So anytime you build anything, like any of the buildings or the farm plot or the automation robots or whatever.
(0:53:40) Codey: Either rusty or haiku will be building that haiku is another robot that will do the same stuff as rusty. We’ll talk about him later.
(0:53:50) Codey: The biofuel was confusing for me at first, but it can be converted to the other currency, which I thought was coins, but I’ve since learned our spare parts.
(0:54:02) Codey: She can convert it into that, but it’s also currency all its own. So everything that you buy will also give you.
(0:54:10) Codey: Or will also require some biofuel.
(0:54:12) Jonnie: Yeah, and on the biofuel, I think it’s not clear at the start of the game, but it’s kind of the thing that you do with crops, is turn them into biofuel. So it’s a bit weird because you harvest the crops and you get coins for harvesting them and then they go into your storage where they can then be turned into biofuel, which I’d say took me a while to kind of understand that that was the sort of loop.
(0:54:38) Codey: yeah yeah yeah he takes three different crops just random crops it’s very confusing and then he can harvest and he can water and those are self-explanatory so when with the planting
(0:54:54) Codey: you start off with three crops wheat radish and cabbage so wheat is free to plant does not cost coins, but you get three coins when it’s harvested.
(0:55:08) Codey: You plant them, you hover over your plot, and then he waters them and harvests them.
(0:55:12) Codey: Each of them has a certain amount of time, like think of Farmville.
(0:55:18) Codey: It’s like two and a half minutes is how much, how long one of them takes, you know, that kind of thing.
(0:55:24) Codey: And there are a bunch of other plant types, but you also have a bunch of other plant types.
(0:55:28) Codey: And there are a bunch of other plant types that you also have a bunch of other plant types, but you also have a bunch of other plant types that you also have a bunch of other plant types.
(0:55:38) Codey: You can unlock those by harvesting a certain number of the previous plants.
(0:55:42) Codey: So like right now, for example, I’m pretty sure this is potato.
(0:55:48) Codey: It requires 100 carrots, 100 of that other, these weird two things, 100 celery, 100 lettuce, no, sorry, 90 lettuce and 40 onions.
(0:56:02) Codey: So I’m, I’m currently prioritizing planting celery and lettuce so that I can.
(0:56:08) Codey: Unlock the potato. It just kind of like guides you into what as to what to plant.
(0:56:14) Codey: Seems fine. And you can buy more plots with coins or spare parts. It keeps saying coins at spare parts.
(0:56:22) Jonnie: I mean, they’re essentially cool, so it’s the same thing.
(0:56:26) Codey: Yeah.
(0:56:30) Codey: The automating is really simple. So with those spare parts, you can buy other robots that will help Rusty.
(0:56:36) Codey: There’s a water bot, a harvest bot.
(0:56:38) Codey: And a biofuel bot, and they will, they have like a radius around them in which they will harvest water or take transfer plants to the biofuel plots.
(0:56:52) Codey: What are these called?
(0:56:53) Codey: Biofuel converters.
(0:56:54) Jonnie: Yeah, I have to say that the radius for the box is slightly frustrating, and it’s always proof
(0:56:55) Codey: It’s like a circle area where it.
(0:57:01) Codey: Cause it’s a circle.
(0:57:01) Jonnie: because it’s a circle. And we should mention that as an idle game, the
(0:57:05) Jonnie: intent behind Rusty’s retirement is that it sits on the side or the bottom of your screen,
(0:57:10) Jonnie: so you can play it while you’re doing something else and it’s not going to take over the whole screen, which is a great concept. I love that concept, love the idea behind that. But these bots have circular–like, so you’ve got this rectangle that you’re playing, and everything else is a–
(0:57:24) Jonnie: square, except for the radius of these bots, which is a circle. And so I’ve ended up in a few situations where I’ve got like a bot, and I just won’t hit like one part of an area, and it’s just very frustrating.
(0:57:31) Codey: Well, then Rusty or the other guy can do that.
(0:57:42) Jonnie: I mean, they can. It’s just frustrating that it’s not, like, super, like, it’s just not clean, you know?
(0:57:53) Jonnie: Like, it really triggers that part of my brain that wants everything to line up and be able to be, you know, properly designed, and it’s the only thing that doesn’t align.
(0:57:54) Codey: Yeah, yup, and they have a speed stat and a capacity stat for how many things they can do until they have to recharge, and then they also have a recharge cost, and that cost goes
(0:58:24) Codey: more you upgrade them.
(0:58:26) Jonnie: And it should be noted that the upgrade cost is tied to that sort of bot as a whole, not like so.
(0:58:35) Codey: Hmm
(0:58:36) Jonnie: If I upgrade speed on one of my water bots, the cost to upgrade speed goes up across all of my water bots.
(0:58:40) Codey: Mm-hmm
(0:58:43) Codey: Oh, I didn’t know that
(0:58:46) Jonnie: So if I look, if I want to upgrade the speed of one of my water bots now, it’s 490 biofuel and almost
(0:58:54) Codey: Wow I’m looking at all of my stuff yet that costs more now. Wow that sucks. I mean it makes sense. Um yep and then there are multiple buildings that you can get. The first of which are well I guess you can do them in whatever order you want. But the first one that’s that’s the cheapest is Haiku’s house. So So Haiku is basically just another Rusty, he just doesn’t…
(0:59:24) Codey: He does everything just like Rusty, he can also move and edit buildings, and he has his own priority task list thing.
(0:59:36) Codey: So you could have it so that Rusty has one priority order and Haiku has another.
(0:59:41) Codey: I have them having the exact same one. I don’t know what you do.
(0:59:46) Jonnie: So when I ended up switching around, so I’ve changed a bit from the default, one has move as a priority and the other has build as a priority which just means kind of as you’re wanting to redecorate the farm and you want to move stuff around to be building stuff it just means that
(1:00:03) Jonnie: you’ve kind of got that split where to me that felt like the most efficient. And then I think by default they have a biofuel quite high. That’s now at the bottom.
(1:00:16) Jonnie: So after moving and building, watering is the highest priority from a farming perspective. That’s generally the one that you get blocked on the most, I’ve found.
(1:00:16) Codey: - Yeah.
(1:00:27) Codey: I mean, the other ones are like you have automated bots that can do it, so why do that?
(1:00:40) Codey: Why have it be that way?
(1:00:40) Jonnie: Exactly. And the biofuel takes time to produce, so like for most biofuel stations they just have one bot next to it whose job it is to go and load that up, so that generally works.
(1:00:45) Codey: Yep, the next thing is Sonnet’s shop.
(1:00:57) Codey: So, Sonnet, can you tell what he is?
(1:01:00) Jonnie: uh is sonnet that way which one’s trying to sonnet I need to
(1:01:05) Codey: He’s got like weird ears, like giant ears.
(1:01:07) Jonnie: oh sonnet is like the I i think sonnet is like uh a mouse maybe
(1:01:14) Codey: He’s got giant ears.
(1:01:16) Codey: One of his ears is like way bigger than the others and I’m like, what is going on here?
(1:01:25) Codey: So his house is used for
(1:01:27) Codey: selling decorations. So he sells plants that you can buy to decorate your place.
(1:01:31) Codey: There’s rocks, there’s some metal pieces that you can put on your property. He also sells Splunk’s signs. So these are the signs that you would put, I believe,
(1:01:42) Codey: correct me if I’m wrong because you’ve already done this, on whatever plot you want to be. Like you basically would put the wheat one when where you want to does it do the whole plot or is it
(1:01:52) Jonnie: Yeah
(1:01:57) Codey: individual thing.
(1:01:57) Jonnie: So it does the whole square
(1:02:00) Jonnie: So if you’ve got a five by oh, yeah four by four, which I think is the biggest size
(1:02:00) Codey: Okay.
(1:02:01) Codey: Mmhmm.
(1:02:04) Codey: Mmhmm.
(1:02:04) Jonnie: It will apply to the whole four by four
(1:02:07) Jonnie: The other thing that I find it useful for is when you’re at the stage We are wanting to like unlock the next plant and you just want like I’m gonna try and convert this field to be
(1:02:08) Codey: Mmhmm.
(1:02:17) Jonnie: You know from wheat to being carrots or whatever. I use the signs a lot
(1:02:22) Jonnie: It’s an indicator for myself as well
(1:02:24) Jonnie: of what I should be planting in in each of the
(1:02:28) Jonnie: Each of the zones just to kind of keep me on track because with an idle game, right?
(1:02:32) Jonnie: Sometimes you step away and you’re like wait, what was I what was I trying to do next? So it’s it’s useful from yeah
(1:02:36) Codey: Mm-hmm. I have no memory of this place. Yeah
(1:02:39) Jonnie: It’s just useful for helping with that
(1:02:41) Codey: Mm-hmm. I’ve not unlocked that yet. The next is pinions house. So he helps you gather statistics. Can you talk about that?
(1:02:49) Jonnie: Yeah, so all it is is it’s just a tab that shows what you currently have planted on your farm,
(1:02:55) Jonnie: it shows how much you’ve biofueled and spare parts you’ve earned, how much biofuel you’re producing,
(1:03:04) Jonnie: and how much you’re consuming. So you can kind of see the overall efficiency of your farm,
(1:03:10) Jonnie: and just you know like how at the moment I can see that I’ve got like 41 bots deployed on my farm,
(1:03:16) Jonnie: I have 63 butterflies, you know, all of those.
(1:03:19) Jonnie: Lots of things which is which is kind of handy to see so it’s just a really useful thing to see
(1:03:26) Jonnie: particularly because your farm gets to the point where you need to scroll and you can be like wait how much do you know am I growing this thing that I need oh yes I am okay that’s good I don’t necessarily know where I just know that it’s happening somewhere
(1:03:36) Codey: Yeah. For sure. Forbic’s house, he collects biofuel from bulb hives. Can you explain that?
(1:03:46) Jonnie: Yeah, the description is weird, and I don’t know that I fully understand how it works,
(1:03:52) Jonnie: but there are… so on his tab, you unlock some berry bushes. The berry bushes unlock in the same way that plants do, where, you know, your first bush is a blueberry bush,
(1:04:03) Jonnie: and I think you need, like, to collect 10 blueberries to unlock the raspberry. The raspberry plant, they take up… each of the bushes just takes up a single square. And then there’s There’s some new, there’s some B buildings, so there is.
(1:04:16) Jonnie: The bowl pipe is, so bowl bullets are, I think what they are calling bees, even though they’re called B buildings.
(1:04:24) Codey: Okay.
(1:04:26) Jonnie: It’s very confusing, but the bowl bullets or the bees collect nectar from the bushes and from flowers to produce biofuel.
(1:04:35) Jonnie: Then you have a butterfly cage that spawns butterflies in the area.
(1:04:39) Jonnie: I think butterflies help the plants, like, produce faster and in this area.
(1:04:46) Jonnie: The bot that picks the berries and carries them to storage units, so it’s kind of just like a different version of growing crops.
(1:04:56) Jonnie: I will admit, I’ve kind of just placed the buildings and it seems to be producing biofuel.
(1:05:00) Codey: Okay, in the help section it has some of the information from it, but I just was never sure what was going on.
(1:05:02) Jonnie: I don’t know that I necessarily understand fully how it works.
(1:05:14) Codey: What is a bulblet?
(1:05:15) Codey: Bulblets are little light bulbs with wings.
(1:05:17) Codey: They provide light for plants to photosynthesize.
(1:05:21) Codey: And then bulblets will deposit nectar into a bulb hive.
(1:05:24) Codey: Once a bulb hive has enough nectar, it will be converted into biofuel.
(1:05:29) Codey: accumulates in the hive so don’t
(1:05:30) Codey: worry if you don’t collect it immediately which is great and you collect it by letting for for big go get it takes a crop about two minutes to dry out that goes unharvested for four minutes that will also dry out oh this mechanic only applies to desert farms okay so that is for Bix house echoes workshop so he updates spots to make them more efficient you want to talk
(1:05:58) Jonnie: That’s kind of just what we talked about before, right? So the cost increases as you do more, you can just increase the carrying capacity or the speed. One minor frustration is you can’t stack multiple upgrades on a bot, but you can, like, set up a big queue of stuff for him to go around and do an upgrade. But yeah, it’s just to, I don’t know, make the bots do more sort of thing. Yeah.
(1:06:24) Codey: Yeah. Cool. Slate’s barn. He will dig for fossils and there’s also animals.
(1:06:32) Jonnie: So there’s cattle and swine, so the fossils are required with biofuel to produce animals,
(1:06:47) Jonnie: so that’s kind of like the currency for getting animals, and they then eat crops and they produce fertilizer. So fertilized crops grow 25% faster and the fertilizer last lasts for an hour. So it’s really just a way to make your farm kind of like more efficient.
(1:07:09) Jonnie: What do you end up doing? So I’m playing in vertical mode just to be clear. So I started with like I had my farm growing down to the south and I was building all my buildings up to the north and the barn was the last building that I built. And so now I’ve got a farm at the north end that I’ve started up that’s like got fertilizer in some of my buildings.
(1:07:32) Jonnie: And that’s often where I’m planting like the new crops that I’m unlocking so I can get a decent stack of them pretty quick to try and to try and unlock more stuff. But again it’s just kind of like making production faster. Like it’s kind of cool to have cows and pigs wandering around the farm and there’s a few like new buildings. There’s some some robots that help do all of the stuff around that, but nothing.
(1:07:34) Codey: Mm-hmm
(1:08:03) Jonnie: Yeah, not, not.
(1:08:04) Codey: okay and then Splunk’s house is the last one so yeah he will plant seeds on a crop patch that is entirely empty if there’s no crop sign posted they will pick a random seed from the last eight crops that you have unlocked so very straightforward so those are the buildings and that’s pretty much the game that’s it just ramps up
(1:08:35) Codey: there are a few accessibility things including focus mode which doubles the production time so it makes things a lot slower and that is supposed to get over what you are saying about how you get distracted because you have stuff that you have to do but it sounds like you’re saying that it’s a not very effective at that
(1:08:59) Jonnie: So even with focus mode on, I don’t think it would have changed that much in terms of my overall experience or feeling about the game.
(1:09:09) Jonnie: Like, it would have slowed down the rate at which I unlocked stuff, but not meaningfully.
(1:09:15) Jonnie: Because I feel like the way you ramp your production in this game outstrips the rate at which costs go up, like doubling the production time,
(1:09:26) Jonnie: I do not think it would have doubled the amount of time to get.
(1:09:30) Jonnie: I’m sitting pretty much at the end game. At the moment I have almost 50,000 biofuel and 90,000 spare parts.
(1:09:39) Jonnie: I can do whatever I want pretty easily.
(1:09:46) Jonnie: There was that definite point where my growth got pretty exponential, very much linked to when I unlocked Splunk.
(1:09:55) Jonnie: And yes, yes, it would have slowed down somewhat
(1:09:56) Codey: - Yeah.
(1:09:59) Jonnie: but not in any way that I think would have felt that meaningful.
(1:10:04) Jonnie: So it like it to me, it’s like, yes, that would go.
(1:10:09) Jonnie: Focus mode goes some way to alleviating my concerns.
(1:10:13) Jonnie: And I think I like, you know, when I really dig into or once I jump back to the main, the new farm that I started,
(1:10:20) Jonnie: I might do that one on focus mode to see if it does change my opinion at all.
(1:10:26) Jonnie: But, you know, I’m not that long into the game
(1:10:30) Jonnie: I’m now just unlocking stuff because I want to unlock all of the stuff,
(1:10:33) Jonnie: not because there is a goal to work towards.
(1:10:36) Codey: Mm-hmm is there like are there achievements a lot of achievements on steam like that. Have you looked at those at all?
(1:10:42) Jonnie: Yeah, so there are achievements on Steam.
(1:10:45) Jonnie: Most of them are just related to, you know, harvest,
(1:10:48) Jonnie: however many crops, get a million spare parts, get X amount of biofuel,
(1:10:54) Jonnie: those sorts of things.
(1:10:56) Jonnie: There’s nothing even from an achievements
(1:10:59) Jonnie: I was wondering about maybe there’s some achievements that will,
(1:11:03) Jonnie: you know, be goals to work towards, but I feel like a lot of them
(1:11:06) Jonnie: I could pretty much achieve now if I wanted to.
(1:11:11) Jonnie: You know, like this one having, I think, like 10 cows or something on your farm.
(1:11:15) Jonnie: And I could just literally do that if I if I felt the need.
(1:11:16) Codey: Mm-hmm.
(1:11:20) Jonnie: Right. Like I could just sit here and say, well, let’s let’s add more more cows.
(1:11:24) Jonnie: Actually, maybe I maybe maybe I can’t do the cows when I don’t know.
(1:11:27) Jonnie: I might not have enough fossils.
(1:11:30) Jonnie: to do that so so maybe yes so there’s some small things to work towards but they’re not
(1:11:36) Jonnie: not huge in the scheme of things and it’s not like having ten cows is like going to
(1:11:41) Jonnie: unlock anything it’s just doing it to get the achievements which is fine right
(1:11:44) Codey: mm-hmm oh yeah I’m a big achievement collector I also liked the pixel font did you turn that on yeah basically it comes with a font immediately it’s kind of like a rustic font like it it matches the vibe of the game but it is kind of unreadable at times so I turned on pixel font it just gives you a sans serif nice font that’s super easy to understand.
(1:11:54) Jonnie: Yes, yeah, I like to put
(1:12:15) Codey: it’s a good accessibility thing and then I just also at one point zoomed all the way out and this it’s huge this this uh it can get pretty heckin big and I was really surprised by how big the you can have it be I don’t know
(1:12:36) Jonnie: Yeah, and I think that was one of the moments for me that kind of made me feel that sort of slight tinge of disappointment is because I think unlocking the first area or two was like it felt like quite a big achievement, right? Because you said you haven’t unlocked any of the other areas,
(1:12:54) Jonnie: right? And I think getting the first 6,000 spare parts to unlock the first area. For me,
(1:12:58) Jonnie: that was like a huge thing. And then the second one was pretty big as well. And then I think I
(1:13:06) Jonnie: unlocked maybe the rest of them all at once. Because I had just enough spare parts to go ahead and do that like that. And I think that was the point I was like, Oh, this thing that felt like it should have been exponential and it is, you know, like an increasing cost. I think there’s the end regions cost 42,000 spare parts each to unlock. But yeah, I just I just grew faster than than the game, than the cost.
(1:13:36) Codey: Mm-hmm, yeah. That makes sense. I’m still really liking it, listeners if you’ve played it at all let us know in the Slack and let us know if you are you more of a decorator or are you more of a production person because I am all about seizing the means of production in this game.
(1:13:56) Jonnie: I feel like you can do both though, right? Like I really like the way my farm is laid out, like I can, I can put decorations around, like there’s that nod to efficiency.
(1:14:08) Jonnie: If you want to, like I had a look around just to see if anyone had like done any optimization stuff and there is definitely optimal farm layouts where they’ve got like, you know, you have this patch with the spot next to it and a well and like everything so there’s some, there’s definitely some optimal farm layout stuff out there if you’re,
(1:14:25) Codey: Yeah.
(1:14:26) Jonnie: you know, interested. Yeah.
(1:14:28) Codey: Yeah, well, I really like it. Uh, I’m going to continue to play it. So
(1:14:36) Jonnie: So I think there are 5 farms in total, I can probably check how many there are.
(1:14:36) Codey: and do you know how many extra farms there are?
(1:14:49) Jonnie: You’ve got the Flower Swap Farm, which is the one I just unlocked.
(1:14:52) Jonnie: We build in between flowing ponds and rivers.
(1:14:56) Jonnie: What I haven’t worked out with that one yet is how rusty works, like can rusty cross streams andrifters or not that one
(1:15:06) Jonnie: is unclear to me There’s a desert so crops dry out if left unattended
(1:15:06) Codey: Mm-hmm-hmm-hmm.
(1:15:12) Jonnie: A blossom forest where you’re building them between blossoming cherry trees and a desert oasis a dry landscape with pools of water
(1:15:20) Jonnie: so
(1:15:22) Jonnie: Yeah, I’m not sure how the two desert ones necessarily differ from each other
(1:15:30) Jonnie: I’m wondering if the the sandy desert doesn’t have any sort of placement restrictions
(1:15:36) Jonnie: Whereas the desert oasis might have some placement restrictions on it
(1:15:40) Jonnie: And like that’s the thing right like I’ve been negative on the idle nature of this game But I’m still enjoying it, and I will still continue to play it It’s just not scratching the itch that I hope it was gonna scratch
(1:15:52) Codey: Yeah well maybe I mean we’ll see if there’s like updates to the game or something but
(1:15:57) Codey: uh yeah pretty good game pretty cute little game um so that is the end of our podcast we’ll wrap up here by talking about um some just basic housekeeping stuff where to find us um so you can find al on um mastodon.scot and on twitter at the scotbot uh you can find me on twitter at cody
(1:16:22) Codey: or mostly on instagram at hiking beagle be eagle um I that’s I use that more than anything um and they can find you on the slack right because johnny is unplugged um you can find uh the the podcast on tumblr and twitter at thspod you can provide feedback and get all of the links including the show notes and the transcripts at harvestseason.club and that is also there’s a link to the patreon on
(1:16:32) Jonnie: Yeah, come join the Slack, find me there.
(1:16:52) Codey: but it’s also patreon.com/thspod if you want to join if you join the patreon you get access to our slack um and you can hear cat talk about um echoes of plum grove and you can hear us talk about different things I was talking about uh showing a picture about how why bees are fish the other day um I also still need to post a picture of my bearded dragon in there uh she is a cutie um We do, I do need to give an update.
(1:17:17) Jonnie: and we need an update on Fox craft.
(1:17:22) Codey: I have my minecraft idling right now while I’m doing this, so I’ll just go take that picture here when we get off and put it up on the slack.
(1:17:32) Codey: Because she is almost complete on the exterior but then my friend is really building up the sanctuary part of it.
(1:17:42) Codey: So there’s like a whole bunch of trees on the head and then he’s built like a mountain down the side. It’s real cool.
(1:17:50) Codey: I’ll post all those pictures.
(1:17:52) Codey: Thanks, Johnny, for joining me.
(1:17:54) Jonnie: Thank you, Cody.
(1:17:55) Jonnie: I like, I know it was quite negative on the game,
(1:17:58) Jonnie: but it was a lot of fun,
(1:17:59) Jonnie: and it was a lot of fun recording this episode.
(1:18:03) Codey: Yeah.
(1:18:03) Codey: And, uh, listeners, maybe listen to, uh, this space to hear more about,
(1:18:10) Codey: uh, maybe another interesting thing that Johnny and I might be doing.
(1:18:15) Codey: Who knows?
(1:18:16) Codey: Who knows?
(1:18:17) Codey: Maybe we’ll have some, some of it on the, on the greenhouse.
(1:18:22) Codey: Might have a whole new thing.
(1:18:24) Codey: Uh, yeah.
(1:18:24) Jonnie: And speaking of Greenhouse, I think two have gone up in the last week
(1:18:26) Codey: Cool.
(1:18:29) Jonnie: There was one of Kev and I talking about cassette beasts
(1:18:33) Jonnie: Which you want to talk about games that I love. I love cassette beasts. So he talked a lot about that and I
(1:18:40) Jonnie: At the time of recording another Greenhouse went up with Kev and Al talking about
(1:18:47) Jonnie: the Princess Peach thing. I don’t know
(1:18:52) Codey: and if yeah I don’t know either and if you’re listening to this tune in this weekend for another greenhouse where Alan I talk about how we feel about this year’s Eurovision contestant it is next week it’s next Saturday it is in a week
(1:19:05) Jonnie: ‘cause that’s next week, isn’t it?
(1:19:07) Jonnie: I have not, like, listened to any of the Eurovision stuff.
(1:19:10) Jonnie: I think I might just go in cold and see what I like.
(1:19:13) Codey: oh okay that’ll that’s that sure is a choice so yeah that’s that’s what’s
(1:19:22) Codey: interesting things cool things to look forward to and yeah until next time have a good harvest
(1:19:29) Theme Tune: The harvest season is created by Al McKinley, with support from our patrons, including our pro farmers, Kevin, Stuart and Alisa.
(1:19:44) Theme Tune: Our art is done by Micah the Brave, and our music is done by Nick Burgess.
(1:19:48) Theme Tune: Feel free to visit our website, harvestseason.club, for show notes and links to things we discussed in this episode.
(1:20:04) Codey: Wow, you did not.
(1:20:04) Jonnie: Look, I have no sense of rhythm, so like whether it’s the clap or have a good harvest, it’s just never gonna be a life, never, ever, ever.
(1:20:18) Codey: It’s fine.
(1:20:19) Codey: I don’t…
(1:20:20) Jonnie: Wow, you say it’s fine in the way where you’re just like, it’s definitely not fine,
(1:20:24) Jonnie: but I just have to accept this. Which is actually, you do have to accept it.

The Harvest Season

Farming Simulator Sickos

Timings

Links

Contact

Transcript