Axolotl Dragon

Wed, Jun 14, 2023 Year 2, Spring 24

Al and Jonnie go through all the news from the Wholesome Direct

Timings

00:00:00: Theme Tune
00:00:30: Intro
00:02:49: What Have We Been Up To
00:09:37: News
00:10:44: Releases
00:27:14: Updates And DLC
00:31:33: Other Info
00:42:43: News Games
00:46:27: Summary
00:48:14: Outro

Links

Wholesome Direct
Videos from Wholesome Games

Original Harvest Moon on Switch
One Lonely Outpost Early Access
One Lonely Outpost New Trailer
Fae Farm Release Date
My Time at Sandrock Release Date
Moonstone Island Release Window
Smushi Come Home
Paleo Pines New Trailer

Disney Dreamlight Valley Update
Spirit of the Island: Beach Resort
Orange Season Frostfall Update

Grimoire Groves Kickstarter
Fields of Mistra
Gourdlets
Farming Simulator Tyres

Garden Buddies
Bubblegum Galaxy

Contact

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

Transcript

[00:00.000 –> 00:09.000] Theme song.
[00:31.000 –> 00:36.000] Hello, farmers, and welcome to another episode of The Harvest Season.
[00:36.000 –> 00:38.000] My name is Al.
[00:38.000 –> 00:40.000] And my name is Jonny.
[00:40.000 –> 00:46.000] And we’re here today to talk about games. So many, so many, many, many, many games.
[00:49.000 –> 00:53.000] There’s too many games, Al. Too many games.
[00:53.000 –> 01:01.000] So many games. We were talking before we recorded that the problem is that the games are almost all good-looking games.
[01:01.000 –> 01:06.000] So it’s not like they’re all terrible-looking games, because if they were all terrible-looking games, we could just ignore them.
[01:08.000 –> 01:15.000] Yeah, no, there’s a lot of really good-looking games, and I feel like I’m going to get sucked into a, you know, world of these games.
[01:15.000 –> 01:18.000] And I don’t have time, Al. I just don’t have time.
[01:18.000 –> 01:20.000] I know, I know, I know.
[01:20.000 –> 01:25.000] Alright, well, speaking of not having time, let’s get on with the show.
[01:25.000 –> 01:30.000] Listeners, well, listeners, I shouldn’t say listeners, because I’m talking about the transcripts now.
[01:30.000 –> 01:37.000] People who need the transcripts for any reason, they are available and shown on the website, so go get them if you need them.
[01:37.000 –> 01:43.000] Today, our main topic is just news, because there’s so much of it.
[01:43.000 –> 01:48.000] We are recording this a couple of hours after the Wholesome Direct came out, so there’s a bunch of news from that.
[01:48.000 –> 01:53.000] And there was just a lot of news for a week anyway, right? There’s been a lot of news this week.
[01:53.000 –> 01:59.000] I don’t know, oh wait, no, I do know why, because apparently it’s Summer Game Fest, so that’s why there’s all the news.
[01:59.000 –> 02:06.000] Look, I know people love these big things, but like, oh my word, could we spread it throughout the year a little bit more?
[02:06.000 –> 02:08.000] This is just too much for one week.
[02:08.000 –> 02:16.000] It’s way too much. And I think one of my takeaways from the Wholesome Direct is I actually feel like it does a disservice to all of these small, great games.
[02:16.000 –> 02:23.000] Because I’m sure there are some great games that we will not talk about today, because there’s just too many for us to keep in our heads.
[02:23.000 –> 02:31.000] Yeah, I agree. I don’t know what a good way to do it is, like, that’s probably not my job, but it just, yeah, I agree.
[02:31.000 –> 02:36.000] Like, there are so many, by the end of it, when they did their montage, I was just kind of glazed over going,
[02:36.000 –> 02:41.000] yeah, sure, looks good, don’t know what, I don’t have the energy to look into that game just now.
[02:42.000 –> 02:48.000] You know, I looked into all of the farming game specific ones, but anyway, we’ll get into that when we get into it.
[02:48.000 –> 02:51.000] Before that, Johnny, what have you been up to?
[02:51.000 –> 02:57.000] Well, and I think our greenhouse episode on this game just dropped, but just Zelda.
[02:57.000 –> 03:03.000] Last night, or yesterday, I came to the realisation that I was kind of hitting the point where I was like,
[03:03.000 –> 03:11.000] ooh, I might be wanting to play some other things, and unlike Breath of the Wild, I kind of want to see where this story’s going,
[03:11.000 –> 03:16.000] so I’m just going to main line the story, and yesterday I did finish the main story,
[03:16.000 –> 03:25.000] and the ending of that game is just, like, peak video game nonsense that I don’t really recall from the ending of a video game,
[03:25.000 –> 03:31.000] like, doing it that well in a long, long time. Maybe ever. It was excellent.
[03:31.000 –> 03:39.000] I love Zelda, I love the way that game ended, I love everything about this game. It is freaking awesome.
[03:39.000 –> 03:47.000] Yeah, I agree. I also finished it yesterday, and we’ll not spoil it, obviously, but I felt, personally, with Breath of the Wild,
[03:47.000 –> 03:53.000] that the biggest lacking thing in it was the end story. To me, it just felt a bit meh.
[03:53.000 –> 04:02.000] It was kind of like, oh, battle! Oh, wait, now he’s massive! Go shoot him! None of it really made any sense.
[04:02.000 –> 04:09.000] Whereas, I think in this one, it felt very tied into all of the story you’ve kind of gone through,
[04:09.000 –> 04:15.000] and when certain things happen at the end, you’re like, of course that makes sense, of course that was going to happen,
[04:15.000 –> 04:22.000] and then how that then led into the final part of the final battle was really good. It kind of balanced things. I really liked it.
[04:22.000 –> 04:29.000] I really liked it as well. There was one giant plot hole, which was kind of always going to be there, that really annoys me,
[04:29.000 –> 04:37.000] but other than that, I thought it was awesome, and it kind of makes me want to see the team that did Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom
[04:37.000 –> 04:47.000] do a smaller, more story-focused style game now, because after Breath of the Wild, I was like, I just want them to do big open world stuff,
[04:47.000 –> 04:53.000] because clearly that’s what they’re good at, but this one was like, oh, they can also do just really good traditional gameplay.
[04:53.000 –> 05:02.000] Yeah, I think it’s interesting, because it’s really hard to do a good open world story, because you can’t rely on anybody doing anything.
[05:02.000 –> 05:10.000] Once you’ve done the tutorial, all bets are off. You could be coming to that last bit without having anything else before,
[05:10.000 –> 05:20.000] and I want to watch the cutscenes for if you haven’t done certain things in the game, because obviously I’ve done almost everything.
[05:20.000 –> 05:25.000] I haven’t done all of the side quests, and I obviously haven’t done all the Korok seeds, but I’ve done everything else.
[05:25.000 –> 05:35.000] I’ve done all of the story bits, and I’ve done all of the shrines, and all of that sort of stuff, and I’ve done more than 50% of everything except the Korok seeds,
[05:35.000 –> 05:45.000] and so it’d be interesting to see how that story changes if you haven’t done certain, but I feel like most of that would still make sense to you.
[05:45.000 –> 05:50.000] You wouldn’t understand why certain things happen necessarily, but it’s not like, oh, that makes no sense.
[05:50.000 –> 05:58.000] You’re like, okay, that’s a thing that apparently happens. Fine, whatever. Suspension of disbelief, I don’t need to care why that happens.
[05:58.000 –> 06:01.000] It’s really hard to talk about this without making specifics, so let’s move on, shall we?
[06:01.000 –> 06:07.000] I haven’t played anything else, because yesterday my Switch broke, and I’m very sad about that.
[06:07.000 –> 06:17.000] I do have multiple Switches, so I can play games on other Switches, but I’m just a bit down about my Switch breaking yesterday, because all my Pokémon saves are on that Switch,
[06:17.000 –> 06:19.000] and I really hope I don’t lose them all.
[06:19.000 –> 06:21.000] Is it like a big break, or…?
[06:21.000 –> 06:29.000] So I think, according to the error that shows on screen, all my Googling says that it is just an issue with the USB port,
[06:29.000 –> 06:34.000] and they should just be able to hotswap out the USB port, and it should all just work.
[06:34.000 –> 06:43.000] But, as with everything, you never know what’s happening under there, and I have heard of people sending in Switches to get fixed, and it comes back with the memory wiped,
[06:43.000 –> 06:49.000] which would be very sad. Very, very sad, because I would lose all of my Pokémon games except Sword and Brilliant Diamond.
[06:49.000 –> 06:53.000] Everything else would be gone on the Switch, so I would be very sad if that happened.
[06:53.000 –> 06:54.000] Yeah, that would suck.
[06:54.000 –> 06:55.000] Especially…
[06:55.000 –> 06:57.000] Of all of the games to keep.
[06:57.000 –> 06:58.000] Oh, I know.
[06:58.000 –> 07:12.000] I guess I can’t get into a rant about this just now, but I’m going to, because I cannot comprehend why they think that the miniscule risk of people cheating in the game by cloning things through the save state,
[07:12.000 –> 07:20.000] is more important than literally losing about 600 hours combined of Pokémon games that would happen.
[07:20.000 –> 07:26.000] And I’m not going to go and redo all of them, because I do not have the time or the energy to do all of that,
[07:26.000 –> 07:30.000] and it’s just going to mean that I’m going to be really disappointed for the rest of this generation,
[07:30.000 –> 07:36.000] because, yeah, sure, I’ll probably play one of the games to get back into Endgame so I can do the things and do the DLC,
[07:36.000 –> 07:45.000] but I will not end up enjoying it as much as I would if I had the saves that I have spent 150 hours playing since release, right?
[07:45.000 –> 07:49.000] It just, it boggles the mind that they think that’s okay, but anyway, whatever.
[07:49.000 –> 07:56.000] But you see, Elle, they’ve done such a good job of stopping them duplicating Pokémon in all other ways.
[07:56.000 –> 08:01.000] This is the thing! It’s so easy to do these things!
[08:01.000 –> 08:09.000] It’s so annoying, and it’s literally only Pokémon, right? Because even Animal Crossing has a way to back up the save, right?
[08:09.000 –> 08:16.000] If I lose that, I can get that back, and every other game I have on the Switch is backed up to Nintendo Switch Online.
[08:16.000 –> 08:22.000] I pay a service to do this, and I can’t use it for the game that matters most to me!
[08:22.000 –> 08:31.000] And even, like, they have Pokémon Home, right? Surely it’s not that difficult to even back up the cloud save into maybe a space like Home, right?
[08:31.000 –> 08:36.000] Which has all of the Pokémon and stuff anyway. I don’t know. There’s, yeah, I’m with you. There’s so many ways to do it.
[08:36.000 –> 08:40.000] They could absolutely do it, because with Animal Crossing, the way it works, right, is you go,
[08:40.000 –> 08:44.000] oh, I have lost my Switch or whatever, and then they give you a way to download it, right?
[08:44.000 –> 08:48.000] It’s not just default, or I can do it whenever I want. You could absolutely do that.
[08:48.000 –> 08:53.000] Go like, oh, these are backed up, but you can only access them by emailing us and saying,
[08:53.000 –> 08:57.000] yes, my Switch broke. It was wiped. Can I please get my saves?
[08:57.000 –> 09:02.000] And that massively increases the barrier to entry. You can’t just go and clone things whenever you want, right?
[09:02.000 –> 09:07.000] You can still, there’s still a way to do it, but nobody’s going to do that realistically, right?
[09:07.000 –> 09:12.000] They’re going to use the hundreds of other easier ways to clone Pokémon than that, right?
[09:12.000 –> 09:18.000] There are literally bots on Discord you can go and message and then trade with them on the game,
[09:18.000 –> 09:23.000] and it will send you back a copy of your Pokémon. That is literally a thing you can do.
[09:23.000 –> 09:24.000] Anyway.
[09:24.000 –> 09:26.000] Yes, agree. It’s stupid.
[09:26.000 –> 09:28.000] Shall we talk about some news?
[09:28.000 –> 09:29.000] Let’s do it. Let’s talk about news.
[09:29.000 –> 09:34.000] Sorry, I just, it’s all very fresh. I’ve literally, it’s been like 27 hours since this has happened,
[09:34.000 –> 09:37.000] so it’s all very fresh. I needed to get that rant out.
[09:38.000 –> 09:42.000] So a quick preamble to this. Obviously, we’ve just had the Wholesome Direct.
[09:42.000 –> 09:47.000] As you’re listening to this, it will have been out a few days ago, so you may well know a lot of what’s happening,
[09:47.000 –> 09:52.000] and you may have gone and watched it. That’s fine. If you want to go watch it, we’ve got a link in the show notes to that.
[09:52.000 –> 09:59.000] I’ll also put in a link to the Wholesome Games videos list, which has every trailer that they had in there,
[09:59.000 –> 10:02.000] if you want to go and watch them. There are so many videos.
[10:02.000 –> 10:07.000] We are not going to talk about games that just showed another trailer.
[10:07.000 –> 10:10.000] Because that’s too much. We’re not doing that.
[10:10.000 –> 10:14.000] There was 80 games in this trailer. We’re not doing that.
[10:14.000 –> 10:16.000] We’re only going to talk about actual news.
[10:16.000 –> 10:20.000] If you want to see everything, go watch the Direct.
[10:20.000 –> 10:25.000] It would take us more time to discuss everything than it would be just go watch the Direct.
[10:25.000 –> 10:30.000] But we will be talking about all the Farming and Cottagecore related news that came out.
[10:30.000 –> 10:34.000] Okay, cool. And also, some of this news didn’t come out the Wholesome Direct.
[10:34.000 –> 10:37.000] Because, as I said, it’s a busy week. There’s lots of stuff.
[10:37.000 –> 10:38.000] So we’re just going to get into it.
[10:38.000 –> 10:44.000] So I’ve chunked this up into a few different sections of different kinds of news, as I like to do when there’s lots of news.
[10:44.000 –> 10:46.000] So the first section is releases.
[10:46.000 –> 10:49.000] So first of all, massive news.
[10:49.000 –> 10:55.000] Harvest Moon, the original Harvest Moon on SNES, is now on Switch Online outside of Japan.
[10:55.000 –> 10:56.000] Woo!
[10:56.000 –> 10:58.000] This is awesome.
[10:58.000 –> 11:03.000] I’m not really a big one for going back and playing old games.
[11:03.000 –> 11:09.000] But the ability to go back and play Harvest Moon is pretty tempting, right?
[11:09.000 –> 11:15.000] We’ve talked in the past about preserving the historical nature of Cottagecore games.
[11:15.000 –> 11:19.000] And this is a really little awesome step forward in that space.
[11:19.000 –> 11:20.000] So this is very exciting.
[11:20.000 –> 11:21.000] Absolutely.
[11:21.000 –> 11:23.000] I will be going back and playing at some point.
[11:23.000 –> 11:28.000] It’ll probably take me a while because this month is insane and then there’s the summer.
[11:28.000 –> 11:33.000] But at some point I will go back and play it because I think it’s good for me to have played it.
[11:33.000 –> 11:36.000] But I think most people won’t.
[11:36.000 –> 11:46.000] But what I think is more exciting than the game itself being on is the fact that Natsume and Marvelous have managed to actually make an agreement on this.
[11:46.000 –> 11:52.000] The two companies who fell out 15 years ago on this have now managed to make an agreement and say,
[11:52.000 –> 11:56.000] yes, this game with this name can now go on on a service.
[11:56.000 –> 11:57.000] That is huge.
[11:57.000 –> 11:59.000] I honestly never thought this would happen.
[11:59.000 –> 12:01.000] No, I don’t think anyone did.
[12:01.000 –> 12:07.000] So, yeah, huge news, huge thing to be released.
[12:07.000 –> 12:09.000] And it’s Switch Online, right?
[12:09.000 –> 12:13.000] So you have to have the subscription in order to get it and then it’s free once you’ve got the subscription.
[12:13.000 –> 12:14.000] Correct.
[12:14.000 –> 12:20.000] And it’s just the lower priced Nintendo Switch Online because it’s SNES.
[12:20.000 –> 12:22.000] So you don’t have to go for the more expensive.
[12:22.000 –> 12:27.000] Next, we have a date for the early access of One Lonely Outpost and that is the 26th of June.
[12:27.000 –> 12:29.000] So was that two weeks away? Something like that?
[12:29.000 –> 12:30.000] Something like that.
[12:30.000 –> 12:33.000] Yeah, it’ll be just about two weeks away.
[12:33.000 –> 12:35.000] I’ll be totally honest with you, Johnny.
[12:35.000 –> 12:37.000] I didn’t realise it was early access that was releasing in June.
[12:37.000 –> 12:39.000] I thought it was the full release.
[12:40.000 –> 12:48.000] I also thought this game was closer to release and I watched the new trailer and I don’t know about this game.
[12:48.000 –> 12:54.000] Like, I like the idea of what it’s trying to do, you know, where you’re establishing a colony on a new planet.
[12:54.000 –> 12:59.000] I think that’s an interesting twist on the traditional farming game.
[12:59.000 –> 13:04.000] And then, you know, they’ve just got like fishing and look, I don’t want to rant about fishing again.
[13:04.000 –> 13:08.000] But why does every game need fishing?
[13:08.000 –> 13:14.000] We are on another planet and we still just have, like, the fishing to look different, which, cool.
[13:14.000 –> 13:20.000] But I just want real, like, innovation.
[13:20.000 –> 13:24.000] Yeah, I think that’s the thing is you watch the trailer and it starts out really interesting because you’re like,
[13:24.000 –> 13:30.000] oh, you’re literally alone on this planet and then you’re trying to create an outpost and that’s really interesting.
[13:30.000 –> 13:39.000] And I do like the idea of, like, slowly kind of terraforming, which does lead to more standard farming stuff once you get to that point.
[13:39.000 –> 13:45.000] And then it’s like, oh, you have to, like, hire new people to come to the colony, blah, blah, blah, blah.
[13:45.000 –> 13:48.000] So then they introduce the relationships again for some reason.
[13:48.000 –> 13:54.000] But then it kind of goes into an interesting, like, oh, there’s maybe more to this than seems.
[13:54.000 –> 13:59.000] Like, maybe there are other people on this planet because, like, there’s a point where it says we were told we were the first or something like that.
[13:59.000 –> 14:03.000] So it kind of sounds like there’s a mystery element to it, which I’m intrigued by.
[14:03.000 –> 14:07.000] Yeah, and yeah, the mystery part does seem intriguing.
[14:07.000 –> 14:15.000] But there was even a weird thing, like, and maybe this is why I’m so irate at, like, the fishing person, is they showed you meeting her and she’s like,
[14:15.000 –> 14:21.000] I’m the local fisherperson around here. And it’s like, what? What do you mean, like, ugh.
[14:21.000 –> 14:28.000] Yes. But anyway, there was implications of some bigger story going on that does seem interesting.
[14:28.000 –> 14:34.000] And, you know, I’m sure there’ll be a number of our listeners who are excited to try this when it comes to early access.
[14:34.000 –> 14:39.000] The other thing is, obviously, this was the game where the developer changed, like, maybe a year ago or something like that.
[14:39.000 –> 14:48.000] And a lot of people are disappointed with the change in art direction since then, which I’m going to be honest, I have no visual memory.
[14:48.000 –> 14:54.000] So I have to go back and look at what it was and compare it. But I just, that’s a thing. Like, some people are disappointed.
[14:54.000 –> 14:58.000] I am on board with people that are disappointed in the art direction.
[14:58.000 –> 15:00.000] Just in general.
[15:00.000 –> 15:13.000] No, well, in general, but for this game in particular, I think it looks, I just don’t like the style that they’ve landed on versus what was shown in some of the earlier screenshots and trailers.
[15:13.000 –> 15:18.000] I’d need to spend more time looking at the two side by side because, as I say, I literally have no idea what it looked like before.
[15:18.000 –> 15:22.000] Right, like, I cannot visualise that at all.
[15:22.000 –> 15:25.000] Next, we have a release date for Fae Farm.
[15:25.000 –> 15:29.000] So this was one that was first announced in a Nintendo Direct last year, I think.
[15:29.000 –> 15:37.000] I’m surprised it’s coming out this early, but there we go. We’ve got the 8th of September this year and a new trailer.
[15:37.000 –> 15:47.000] Yeah, exciting to see this one get a release date because, like you, this was very much in the definitely going to be 2024 bucket in my mind.
[15:47.000 –> 15:58.000] New trailer looks fun. I can’t remember if that said whether or not they were going to have co-op, but co-op is confirmed for this one, which is cool.
[15:58.000 –> 16:05.000] I think that was a kind of fundamental thing about it, I think. Not required, but that was one of their big things was, yeah, it’s a co-op game.
[16:05.000 –> 16:09.000] Yeah, because it was definitely all over this trailer.
[16:09.000 –> 16:15.000] Yeah, and the first trailer in the Nintendo Direct last year was, like, multiple of them bouncing around. I think they made a big thing.
[16:15.000 –> 16:23.000] Yeah, it looks cool. I think I talked about this last time, but I’m a little bit over the whole, like, you know, it’s farming plus witches sort of thing.
[16:23.000 –> 16:32.000] I don’t know that this one’s really doing enough for me to be like, yeah, I really want to check it out, but it does look like a good version of one of these.
[16:32.000 –> 16:44.000] The art style to me is very reminiscent of, like, you know, the sort of Disney or Pixar-ish style games from, like, the early 2000s just scaled up for sort of modern times.
[16:44.000 –> 16:49.000] And I do love the backflip that the character does, where they do, like, the double jump or whatever it is. That’s kind of great.
[16:49.000 –> 16:55.000] Yeah, it looks like the movement is fluid and fun, which is very rare in farming games.
[16:55.000 –> 16:59.000] Like, normally it’s just like, oh yeah, you just move forwards and backwards and yeah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
[16:59.000 –> 17:08.000] So it does look like a fun movement game. But yeah, I think I need to, I was going to say, I think I need to look into it more before I decide if I’m going to buy it and play it.
[17:08.000 –> 17:18.000] But no, that’s my job. That’s what I’m doing. I’m going to play it and tell you. I can’t remember, did I get, was that a Kickstarter one or not? I need to double check. I have too many Kickstarters.
[17:19.000 –> 17:31.000] My Time at Sandrock. So this is the, just in case you’re not aware, this is the sequel to My Time at Portia, currently in early access, full release, 1.0 release, sorry, coming 26th of September.
[17:31.000 –> 17:43.000] Al, I think I’m ready to get burned again. I was so excited for My Time at Portia and I played like five minutes of that game and hated just about every second of it.
[17:44.000 –> 17:49.000] And then I watched the trailer for My Time at Sandrock and it looks really good.
[17:49.000 –> 17:54.000] Oh, Jonny, Jonny, Jonny, Jonny. Well, you can do that episode then.
[17:56.000 –> 18:05.000] I just, I don’t know. Like I hated the crafting in it and I’m sure that’s going to be all over this version. Maybe I need to watch someone play the early access so I can get it out of my system.
[18:05.000 –> 18:16.000] But, um, I don’t know. It looks really cool. And I like the whole sort of Western vibe for it. Again, like it seems like September is going to be a bit of a busy month.
[18:16.000 –> 18:24.000] Not just September, the 26th of September, because that is My Time at Sandrock. It’s also Mineko’s Night Market, which we already knew about.
[18:24.000 –> 18:32.000] And there’s another game coming out in the 26th of September, which I’m now moving up the list because that works, is Paleo Pines is coming out on the 26th of September.
[18:32.000 –> 18:36.000] Three farming games coming out on the same day.
[18:43.000 –> 18:53.000] Okay, I’m not playing My Time at Sandrock, probably ever. Paleo Pines I definitely want to play, but I’m sorry. Mineko comes first. Mineko’s Night Market comes first. Sorry, Paleo Pines.
[18:53.000 –> 18:59.000] Yep. Yep. I was like, it sucks to not be Mineko’s Night Market because I think that’s the top of everybody’s list.
[18:59.000 –> 19:05.000] There wasn’t an Echoes trailer in the Wholesome Direct, but technically no news.
[19:05.000 –> 19:08.000] I believe it was on the Wholesome Direct pre-show.
[19:08.000 –> 19:11.000] Oh, don’t get me started on this, Johnny!
[19:11.000 –> 19:14.000] You had to know I was going to get you started on this at some point.
[19:14.000 –> 19:20.000] This thing, the Wholesome Direct, was scheduled to start at 5pm My Time.
[19:20.000 –> 19:24.000] And you tune in and it’s like, oh, here’s the countdown. Okay, fine, whatever, the countdown.
[19:24.000 –> 19:31.000] And then what you think is the direct starts. And then halfway through they’re like, oh, and the last thing of our pre-show.
[19:31.000 –> 19:36.000] And I’m like, I’m sorry, what now? This isn’t the show! Why is this not the direct?
[19:36.000 –> 19:41.000] Why is this a pre-show that was meant to happen before the scheduled time for the thing?
[19:41.000 –> 19:48.000] Like, it’s not, ugh. I just don’t understand. Why is that not just part of the thing?
[19:48.000 –> 19:53.000] How are these things? It’s like they were like, oh, we can’t fit these ones into the direct. Let’s put them before the direct.
[19:53.000 –> 19:58.000] But let’s put them at the scheduled time for the direct so that everybody sees them anyway.
[19:58.000 –> 20:04.000] So they may as well have been in. It’s like, if you’re going to do a pre-show, do a pre-show.
[20:04.000 –> 20:08.000] Don’t do a pre-show at the time that the show is meant to be.
[20:08.000 –> 20:12.000] Also, what even is a pre-show when it’s just a YouTube livestream?
[20:12.000 –> 20:17.000] Yeah, it wasn’t even a livestream. If it was a livestream it would make sense, right?
[20:17.000 –> 20:22.000] Because then it’s just like a livestream starts and then at some point the pre-show happens and then the show happens.
[20:22.000 –> 20:29.000] It was a premiere. It was just a video that they upload to go live at a certain time and everybody watches it like it’s a live show.
[20:29.000 –> 20:31.000] But it’s not. It’s just a YouTube video.
[20:31.000 –> 20:35.000] Oh my god, yes. So that makes absolutely no sense.
[20:35.000 –> 20:39.000] It’s, you know, not like people are sitting there like, oh, message your friends, you know, it’s started.
[20:39.000 –> 20:44.000] The pre-show’s starting. You’ve got to get it now. Like, it’s just a YouTube video. Come on.
[20:44.000 –> 20:50.000] There was another one that I was watching yesterday, the Future of Play direct, which, stupid name, but whatever.
[20:50.000 –> 20:58.000] They did it as a premiere as well. They had an hour long inside the premiere before the actual show.
[20:58.000 –> 21:03.000] So if you tuned in when it went, oh, it’s going live now, you click on it, there’s an hour to go!
[21:03.000 –> 21:10.000] Right, okay, fine. But the worst bit is, now, if you go to that YouTube video, it just has that hour of nonsense at the beginning.
[21:10.000 –> 21:17.000] You have to forward on it. You have to go scroll through an hour of this hour and a half long video to see anything.
[21:17.000 –> 21:24.000] I don’t, hey, pro tip, right, to all the people out there, and realistically, these people should know,
[21:24.000 –> 21:28.000] because it was, I can’t remember, it was IGN, I think, that had this video up. Pro tip to IGN,
[21:28.000 –> 21:34.000] I don’t know if anybody on your team knows this, but you can actually edit YouTube videos after they’ve been published
[21:34.000 –> 21:39.000] to, like, trim down the beginning. You can do that. It’s a thing you can do, just to let you know.
[21:39.000 –> 21:45.000] Also, you don’t have to do that. Don’t give it an hour long, like, it’s just, just make it go live.
[21:45.000 –> 21:51.000] When you say it’s going to go live. Also, another thing, YouTube premiers have a countdown on the front of them.
[21:51.000 –> 21:55.000] You don’t need to add your own countdown onto your video, because they already have a countdown.
[21:55.000 –> 21:59.000] See, when you tune into a video, and there’s a countdown, and then the countdown stops, and then there’s another countdown,
[21:59.000 –> 22:05.000] that’s very annoying. Just saying. No matter how lovely your countdown is, and Wholesome Games, your countdown was lovely.
[22:05.000 –> 22:12.000] It was lovely, lovely to watch. But you know what, it’s six minutes past five, I want to be watching the thing now.
[22:12.000 –> 22:15.000] I’m so pleased with how this went.
[22:15.000 –> 22:22.000] Moonstone Island is releasing this summer. It’s really funny when it’s like, oh, here’s a, here’s an update on a release window,
[22:22.000 –> 22:28.000] and it’s like, summer. Okay, fine. It’s summer now. Where’s the game? I don’t, just.
[22:28.000 –> 22:33.000] I don’t even remember what Moonstone Island is. There were so many games showing this.
[22:33.000 –> 22:36.000] I think there’s Flying Islands in this game. I lose track.
[22:36.000 –> 22:39.000] Yeah, this is like the one with the Baba Yaga house.
[22:39.000 –> 22:42.000] Which is a funny thing to hear now.
[22:42.000 –> 22:47.000] Flying Islands, how original.
[22:47.000 –> 22:50.000] Creature collecting life sim, this one is.
[22:50.000 –> 22:55.000] It’s definitely, floating island is definitely the thing of the day, and creature collecting as well.
[22:55.000 –> 23:01.000] Like, this one is kind of like just using all of the buzzwords of the day, and yet it still looks really good.
[23:01.000 –> 23:06.000] Like, it’s got a nice pixelated art style. I don’t know, I’m really into this game.
[23:06.000 –> 23:13.000] Yeah, me too. Their Steam page says Q3, which is not exactly the same as summer,
[23:13.000 –> 23:16.000] no matter what definition of summer you use, but whatever, fine.
[23:16.000 –> 23:21.000] Look, I think we’ve learned this year that summer is a very flexible word.
[23:21.000 –> 23:31.000] I just, right, I want, I want game developers and publishers and PR people to stop using those words.
[23:31.000 –> 23:37.000] Stop using spring, summer, winter, autumn, fall, whatever. Stop it.
[23:37.000 –> 23:43.000] Use Q’s, right, because Q2, we all know what Q2 is. Cheers. Do that.
[23:43.000 –> 23:48.000] Do we all know what Q2 is, Al? You might be assuming a lot of things about a lot of people.
[23:48.000 –> 23:51.000] Well, you know what Q2 is. Don’t even pretend like you don’t know what Q2 is.
[23:51.000 –> 23:54.000] I mean, I know what Q2 is, but, you know.
[23:55.000 –> 24:02.000] Do not do the whole, oh, is it a Gregorian calendar year or is it a financial year?
[24:02.000 –> 24:05.000] No, I don’t care. No, stop it.
[24:05.000 –> 24:08.000] You cut me off before I even get started, Al.
[24:10.000 –> 24:14.000] There was a new trailer for that as well. The game looks good. The news is it’s releasing in the summer.
[24:14.000 –> 24:16.000] There’s nothing else new. Moving on.
[24:17.000 –> 24:26.000] Smushy Come Home, which, by the way, I looked at the title and, wait, I know what that game is.
[24:26.000 –> 24:33.000] That wasn’t the name, was it? Like, it’s impressive having a name for a game, and I didn’t see anything else.
[24:33.000 –> 24:38.000] I just initially saw, oh, Smushy Come Home is coming out, because I saw that before the Direct started.
[24:38.000 –> 24:43.000] They announced it just before the Direct. I was like, I do know what game they’re talking about, right?
[24:43.000 –> 24:48.000] It’s the toad guy that’s, you know, going around and delivering mail and stuff, right? Fine.
[24:48.000 –> 24:52.000] But that wasn’t the name, was it? And no, it wasn’t. Turns out it wasn’t the name.
[24:52.000 –> 25:04.000] They had to change their name because they got cease and desist from a company with the same name as what they originally had, which was Shumi.
[25:04.000 –> 25:07.000] So it was Shumi. Now it’s Smushy.
[25:07.000 –> 25:09.000] Smushy. Smushy’s a great name.
[25:09.000 –> 25:17.000] They say the name is Smushy, and then they try and describe the name of it, like, where’s the description?
[25:17.000 –> 25:24.000] Pronounced S-M-U-S-H-Y. And I’m like, I’m sorry, the thing I’m not sure about is not there’s a Y at the end, right?
[25:24.000 –> 25:29.000] The thing I’m confused about here is, how do you pronounce the U sound? Is it Smushy or Smushy?
[25:29.000 –> 25:32.000] I assume it’s Smushy, right? Because it’s mushroom.
[25:33.000 –> 25:36.000] Oh, okay. Yeah, we’ll go with that.
[25:36.000 –> 25:42.000] But I just thought it might be U because presumably it was Shumi, the original name, right? It wasn’t Shummy, right?
[25:42.000 –> 25:47.000] So I thought maybe we could see the consonant sound. Yeah, exactly. See, this is the problem.
[25:47.000 –> 25:51.000] This is the problem. If you’re going to give us a pronunciation gain, give us a proper, record yourself saying it.
[25:51.000 –> 25:56.000] That’s the best way to do it. Record yourself. All good. Anyway.
[25:56.000 –> 26:00.000] Sorry, yes. Smushy come home is out now.
[26:00.000 –> 26:05.000] That’s the news. It’s out now. Two days ago they were like, oh, big news coming Saturday.
[26:05.000 –> 26:11.000] Not just big news, big thing. This is good. This is a good way to release a game. Just go, hey, out now.
[26:11.000 –> 26:17.000] What was very funny is, in the trailer for this, the developer, because I believe it was developed by,
[26:17.000 –> 26:24.000] I can’t remember their name, but I believe they developed the full game except for the music.
[26:24.000 –> 26:31.000] I think it was just one guy, basically, yeah. And when he introduced the trailers, you know, did a bit of a,
[26:31.000 –> 26:35.000] and wait till the end for, you know, like, make sure you watch to the end.
[26:35.000 –> 26:38.000] And like the way that makes it seem like it’s going to be some really lame announcement.
[26:38.000 –> 26:43.000] And then it’s just like all of a sudden and like kind of small text like out now. And I was like, wait, what?
[26:43.000 –> 26:48.000] Out now? You should make that a much bigger deal. Much, much, much bigger.
[26:48.000 –> 26:53.000] Yeah. Yeah. I really like the look of this game. I think it’s really cute.
[26:53.000 –> 26:58.000] I’ll be interested to see how it actually plays. But yeah, it’s out now. Go play it if you want to play it.
[26:58.000 –> 27:04.000] It’s out now on Steam and Switch. Wow. No, no Switch coming later. That’s impressive.
[27:04.000 –> 27:05.000] That’s very impressive.
[27:05.000 –> 27:11.000] Yeah. And so it’s on launch sale with 20% off. So good time to buy it.
[27:11.000 –> 27:17.000] That’s all the release date information. Next, we have some updates and DLC.
[27:17.000 –> 27:22.000] So the first one is the new Disney Dreamlight Valley update. The forgetting update is out now.
[27:22.000 –> 27:27.000] Yeah, this looks, this is kind of the biggest update to date.
[27:27.000 –> 27:32.000] If you’ve played through Disney Dreamlight Valley already,
[27:32.000 –> 27:37.000] this is where they finally put someone into the pumpkin house that’s been there since this game released,
[27:37.000 –> 27:40.000] I believe, with nobody living in it.
[27:41.000 –> 27:48.000] And I mean, it just seems like I haven’t played much since we did the episode on Disney Dreamlight Valley,
[27:48.000 –> 27:56.000] but the amount of cosmetic stuff that they have been putting into the game with every release that comes out is pretty absurd.
[27:56.000 –> 28:00.000] So if you haven’t played this game in a while and some of the customization was a reason why,
[28:00.000 –> 28:06.000] because when it first launched, it was very light. It’s getting absurdly deep with the amount of customization.
[28:06.000 –> 28:10.000] So worth jumping back into for some of that stuff.
[28:10.000 –> 28:17.000] Yeah, no, absolutely. I need to get, I think I’m going to wait until the 1.0 release just because I’m like,
[28:17.000 –> 28:22.000] I don’t want to actually pay money for it and I was playing on Game Pass before and my Game Pass runs out in like two weeks
[28:22.000 –> 28:26.000] and I’m not paying for Game Pass just now because I have too many games as it is.
[28:26.000 –> 28:31.000] So, yeah, and I was getting a bit frustrated with the streaming of it.
[28:31.000 –> 28:37.000] But I think once this goes 1.0 and free to play, I am going to get lost.
[28:37.000 –> 28:42.000] Yeah, we might need to do another follow-up episode once it goes 1.0 because I’m in that same bucket.
[28:42.000 –> 28:46.000] Once it goes 1.0, that’s when I think I’ll be ready to jump back in.
[28:46.000 –> 28:50.000] Yep, yep, yep. There aren’t many games we’ve done that for. We did it for Ooblets.
[28:50.000 –> 28:54.000] We’ve done it for anything else. I don’t think we’ve done it for anything else, but I plan to do it for more.
[28:54.000 –> 28:57.000] Definitely want to do it for Coral Island. Definitely wanted to do it for Dreamlight Valley.
[28:58.000 –> 29:03.000] Spirit of the Island have got a new free DLC, which is interesting.
[29:03.000 –> 29:08.000] So it’s a DLC because it’s like a separate thing that you get from Steam rather than just an update.
[29:08.000 –> 29:15.000] But why if it’s free? I don’t understand why you would do that, but I don’t care enough to argue about it.
[29:15.000 –> 29:20.000] I wonder if it’s like a little marketing thing because it’s a new product.
[29:20.000 –> 29:24.000] That’s a good point. Maybe it bumps up lists and stuff like that. Could be.
[29:24.000 –> 29:31.000] It’s also possible that they want to have paid DLC later and this is just like getting people used to the idea of DLC.
[29:31.000 –> 29:35.000] Yeah. Either way, more free content is always good.
[29:35.000 –> 29:40.000] Yep. It’s out now. Sorry, I was just adding it to my content library there because I do own the game.
[29:40.000 –> 29:43.000] I don’t know if I’ve played it, but I do own it.
[29:43.000 –> 29:49.000] And an update rather than the DLC because this game hasn’t hit 1.0 yet is Orange Season.
[29:49.000 –> 29:56.000] The Frostfall update, which if you couldn’t figure out, adds a bunch of stuff for Autumn and Winter.
[29:56.000 –> 30:00.000] I’m not sure why they called it Frostfall and then said with Autumn and Winter season.
[30:00.000 –> 30:04.000] It’s like, come on, get on your consistency there. Are you going to call it Fall or are you going to call it Autumn?
[30:04.000 –> 30:07.000] Although I guess Frost Autumn doesn’t really sound as good, does it?
[30:07.000 –> 30:20.000] Is Orange Season… Yeah, Orange Season is kind of the Stardew Valley clone that has yet to show off anything that actually stands out as a sort of unique selling point.
[30:20.000 –> 30:32.000] But it does have a better name than it originally did because this was the one that was called Fantasy Farming Orange Season and then they just changed it to Orange Season, which is an infinitely better name.
[30:32.000 –> 30:35.000] It is definitely better. I will not commit to it being infinitely better.
[30:35.000 –> 30:42.000] I think it’s infinitely better because Fantasy Farming Orange Season is possibly the worst name they could have chosen.
[30:42.000 –> 30:55.000] Blah, blah, blah. Anything to say about this? No, it’s an early access update. If you play the game, go get it. If you don’t play the game, by now you’re probably waiting for 1.0.
[30:56.000 –> 31:03.000] And if you’ve played the game and you think it’s decent, let us know because I would be interested to hear.
[31:03.000 –> 31:10.000] Sometimes you look at these games and you’re like, are people just bad at advertising their product? Because many times they are, right?
[31:10.000 –> 31:15.000] Particularly when it’s small indie developers and they’re not advertising, they’re just game developers.
[31:15.000 –> 31:23.000] So sometimes these things, we may be overly harsh if you’ve actually played the game because we’re just looking at a trailer or something like that.
[31:23.000 –> 31:27.000] And a lot of these people are not marketers by trade. Yep, absolutely.
[31:27.000 –> 31:33.000] And we can’t play all the games because there are too many games, as we said before.
[31:33.000 –> 31:37.000] Okay, so we’re now getting into some slightly meatier stuff.
[31:37.000 –> 31:48.000] So, Grimoire Groves, I think is how it’s pronounced, their Kickstarter is now live, which means, Johnny, we actually have some information about this game now.
[31:48.000 –> 31:54.000] Like I think previously it was like, oh, here’s a piece of art. And that was basically it.
[31:54.000 –> 32:03.000] So they’re calling this a cozy magical gardening adventure, grow cute plants and friendships with your witch magic.
[32:03.000 –> 32:07.000] And then there’s a big long Kickstarter with a whole bunch of information.
[32:07.000 –> 32:14.000] They’re also saying it’s a cozy roguelite dungeon crawler, which to me feels like a contradiction in terms.
[32:14.000 –> 32:22.000] Well, I agree. But looking at the trailer, it didn’t give off strong combat vibes and maybe more like exploration.
[32:22.000 –> 32:32.000] I assume it’s like, you know, maybe once your mana depletes or something to that effect, then that’s when you get kicked out rather than a sort of when you die.
[32:32.000 –> 32:41.000] That was the impression that I got, which I think is a really interesting take if it’s like, yeah, more exploration based roguelite rather than a combat based roguelite.
[32:41.000 –> 32:49.000] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because it says a cozy roguelite dungeon crawler that will transport you to a world of wonder and excitement.
[32:49.000 –> 32:59.000] In this game, you’ll play as a young witch who grows cute plant creatures and discovers the secrets of the grimoire groves, a forest inhabited by mythical creatures and powerful spirits.
[32:59.000 –> 33:05.000] And it might be because it looks like the plants are walking around after you’ve grown numb.
[33:05.000 –> 33:10.000] So it could be if there is combat that your plants do the combat, like maybe it’s a plants versus zombies type thing.
[33:10.000 –> 33:18.000] Yeah, it’s hard to know. But what sort of stood out to me is in the Kickstarter page, they sort of list the games that they were heavily inspired by.
[33:18.000 –> 33:23.000] And they list Animal Crossing, Hades, Stardew Valley, Moonlighter and Wizard of Legend.
[33:23.000 –> 33:29.000] Now, I have not played Wizard of Legend, but I have played the other four games and I love all four of those games.
[33:29.000 –> 33:38.000] So when I saw that, I was very excited because they’re four like quite different games to have together as your inspiration.
[33:38.000 –> 33:42.000] But the fact that I like them all, I am very excited by this.
[33:42.000 –> 33:54.000] Yeah, I’m definitely willing to see how it goes because Cult of the Lamb I was very suspicious of combining the kind of roguelite stuff with farming, which worked really well.
[33:54.000 –> 34:01.000] But I certainly wouldn’t say that was cozy. It didn’t feel cozy. It was still stressful. That’s the thing, right?
[34:01.000 –> 34:06.000] And this looks cozier than Cult of the Lamb. At least it gives off cozier vibes.
[34:06.000 –> 34:12.000] Yeah, no, absolutely. I agree. Like the colour palette and all of that, it definitely screams cozy.
[34:12.000 –> 34:17.000] Oh my word, there’s a massive axolotl dragon type thing. I want an axolotl dragon.
[34:17.000 –> 34:18.000] That does sound amazing.
[34:18.000 –> 34:20.000] His face, so derpy.
[34:20.000 –> 34:32.000] Yeah, the whole vibe of this game is very cute. I haven’t back to Kickstarter in ages and I’m kind of getting tempted to back this one because it looks cool.
[34:32.000 –> 34:40.000] And I know that I said I’m very over sort of the witchy magic thing in farming games, but not for this one. This one is okay.
[34:40.000 –> 34:49.000] And the Kickstarter is fully funded as of recording and there’s still 30 days to go. So it’s happening.
[34:49.000 –> 34:53.000] Yeah, I’ve already backed it. I backed it as soon as it went live.
[34:54.000 –> 34:57.000] I found another paragraph in the Kickstarter that gives us more hints.
[34:57.000 –> 35:02.000] So this game being a rogue light means that you will die a lot, right? Don’t worry.
[35:02.000 –> 35:06.000] The worst thing that can happen is falling asleep after spending too much magical energy.
[35:06.000 –> 35:12.000] And even if that happens, each time you play, you’ll unlock new abilities and upgrades that will help you get further on your next.
[35:12.000 –> 35:19.000] So it definitely does sound like it’s more like a kind of standard rogue light than Cult of the Lamb.
[35:19.000 –> 35:30.000] It doesn’t sound like you have a base that doesn’t change. It sounds like the rogue light part of it is your gaining of upgrades and new ways to do things for the next playthrough, like Hades.
[35:30.000 –> 35:38.000] Yeah, but even with Hades, there was like a central hub. And you upgraded things at the hub.
[35:38.000 –> 35:45.000] What does the hub look like? Does it actually mean anything or is it basically just like a glorified menu?
[35:45.000 –> 35:49.000] Well, there’s lots of characters that you could interact with at the hub.
[35:49.000 –> 36:01.000] Like in many respects, it was a bit of a glorified menu, but there was a lot of interaction stuff and added a lot of color and flavor to the world of Hades.
[36:01.000 –> 36:07.000] So it’s definitely not fair to say it was just a menu, but like that was the primary function that it served.
[36:07.000 –> 36:13.000] Like there wasn’t huge gameplay elements. It was more like after each run, here’s a five minute break before you start the next run.
[36:13.000 –> 36:21.000] See, this is what I liked about Cult of the Lamb is that your hub was a farm that you were building up, right? That was the farming bit of it.
[36:21.000 –> 36:29.000] And even if you died, you would respawn in your farm the way the farm was and what you lost was what you had on the journey.
[36:29.000 –> 36:34.000] Whereas it sounds like this is more like your standard rogue lights like Hades and…
[36:34.000 –> 36:41.000] Oh, what’s the… atomic crops? Where, yeah, sure, you have a hub, and there are people there and stuff.
[36:41.000 –> 36:45.000] But the point of that is just to upgrade stuff and then keep going on your thing.
[36:45.000 –> 36:52.000] Whereas Cult of the Lamb was, this is the place you’re spending most of your time, or I want to go get some stuff, let’s go out into the rogue light aspect.
[36:52.000 –> 36:57.000] Well, there is a demo out, so potentially we could try and find out.
[36:57.000 –> 37:01.000] Come on, Johnny, I don’t have time for demos!
[37:01.000 –> 37:05.000] If I can’t make a podcast episode on it, I’m not doing it.
[37:05.000 –> 37:08.000] That is entirely reasonable.
[37:08.000 –> 37:15.000] Yeah, okay, cool. That’s probably enough on that one, but it looks great. I have already backed it, linked to the Kickstarter if you want it.
[37:15.000 –> 37:21.000] Next, we have Fields of Mystria. So, again, this was a game we didn’t know much about before.
[37:21.000 –> 37:26.000] We knew it was a farming game of some kind, but that was all we really knew.
[37:26.000 –> 37:37.000] We have a trailer, and we have a lot of new stuff, so the Steam page has a bunch of new screenshots and features and some of the characters.
[37:37.000 –> 37:42.000] So there are 12 marriage candidates.
[37:42.000 –> 37:48.000] This is, again, my regular request for a farming game where you can romance anybody in the game.
[37:48.000 –> 37:56.000] Except, I’d be cool if there were maybe some asexual people, but other than that, you can romance anybody in the game, even if they’re in a relationship.
[37:56.000 –> 38:03.000] That’s my request. No, these are the people you can romance and these are the people you can’t. No, no, no, no. Done with that.
[38:03.000 –> 38:13.000] The interesting thing about this, I don’t know about you, but from the previous images we got, I was expecting a very different art style for this game.
[38:13.000 –> 38:20.000] Yeah, I was feeling the same way, because all of the previous imagery felt very…
[38:20.000 –> 38:22.000] High quality, well, not high quality, high def.
[38:22.000 –> 38:27.000] Yeah, high def is the word I was looking for, and it’s very pixel-arty.
[38:27.000 –> 38:31.000] It is, which is fine. I quite like how it looks. It’s just not what I was expecting at all.
[38:31.000 –> 38:40.000] Yeah, I agree. It doesn’t look like I expected, but it still looks great, and I think you’re already going to be disappointed, Al, because there’s only 12 marriage candidates.
[38:40.000 –> 38:46.000] So I’m guessing that’s not everybody. They’re a very good looking group of marriage candidates, so, you know.
[38:46.000 –> 38:53.000] Yeah, yeah, sure, sure. I will say as well that they’ve done an interesting thing where it’s a pixel art game.
[38:53.000 –> 39:02.000] You still have character portraits, but the character portraits are still pixel art. They’re just much higher quality pixel art.
[39:02.000 –> 39:11.000] But it’s quite an interesting one, because quite often games will do pixel art, but then the character portraits are these really high def.
[39:11.000 –> 39:19.000] They’re so sharp, they could cut you pictures. And sometimes that feels a little bit off. It doesn’t feel like it fits with the game.
[39:19.000 –> 39:27.000] Whereas in this, they are still pixel art, and they feel much more in tune with how the game is. I really like it.
[39:27.000 –> 39:32.000] Yeah, I also really like it. And there’s just some cool little stuff that they showed in the trailer.
[39:32.000 –> 39:40.000] At one point, again, because everything in the art needs to have magic, but they showed the character casting a spell and all of the plants around it,
[39:40.000 –> 39:46.000] sort of going from seedlings to being fully grown, which, cool. I like that.
[39:46.000 –> 39:51.000] They have a cow that looks like it might be a Highland cow, which is cool. I like a Highland cow.
[39:51.000 –> 39:58.000] I don’t think I’ve played a farming game with a Highland cow before. And it looks like you can cross over your animals,
[39:58.000 –> 40:03.000] because you have a white cow and a Highland cow, and they give birth to a…
[40:03.000 –> 40:08.000] Ah yes, this was the one that had shiny baby farming animals.
[40:08.000 –> 40:14.000] Shiny baby farming animals. Yeah, it’ll be interesting to see how that goes.
[40:14.000 –> 40:19.000] Yeah, I like the look of this game. And it’s nice to actually have some stuff.
[40:19.000 –> 40:24.000] So I don’t think we have any date for this game. It’s still coming. Oh, it said 2024.
[40:24.000 –> 40:28.000] So, there you go. Let me add that before I forget.
[40:28.000 –> 40:36.000] My biggest mistake doing this farming podcast was keeping a list of all the games and trying to keep that up to date.
[40:36.000 –> 40:39.000] It is murder.
[40:39.000 –> 40:41.000] It’s only like a full time job, you know.
[40:41.000 –> 40:47.000] Ah dude, it is. There are 81 games on this list now. Oh, I just lost a game. Where did it go?
[40:47.000 –> 40:52.000] Now there are 80 games on this list. Sorry if I ever got deleted. Your game is no longer coming out.
[40:52.000 –> 40:57.000] Oh no, how do I? Ah! I can’t get rid of it. Right, I’ll fix that later.
[40:57.000 –> 40:59.000] Godless.
[40:59.000 –> 41:00.000] Yes.
[41:00.000 –> 41:02.000] Farming is being added to the game.
[41:02.000 –> 41:06.000] Yes. I didn’t realise there wasn’t farming in this game already.
[41:06.000 –> 41:07.000] Me either.
[41:07.000 –> 41:10.000] It wasn’t a farming game until now it’s going to be a farming game.
[41:10.000 –> 41:13.000] Well, it’s not really even then going to be a farming game, right?
[41:13.000 –> 41:19.000] Because this is the game where you just create the world and the gauntlets do everything on their own.
[41:19.000 –> 41:27.000] And I love the idea of this game. It looks super cosy, super relaxing, don’t do anything and yet things happen.
[41:27.000 –> 41:29.000] I’m into it. It looks great.
[41:29.000 –> 41:33.000] Yeah, this feels like what a management game should be in my opinion.
[41:33.000 –> 41:39.000] Because we’ve discussed this before, my issue with management games is they’re stressful.
[41:39.000 –> 41:46.000] I don’t like stressful. So I would like management games but without them being stressful.
[41:46.000 –> 41:51.000] And this looks like it could be that. So that looks fun.
[41:51.000 –> 41:52.000] It does look fun.
[41:52.000 –> 41:58.000] And there’s a couple of new games that we need to talk about but beforehand we have one more piece of news.
[41:58.000 –> 42:03.000] Which is that… I don’t know why I included this.
[42:03.000 –> 42:15.000] So Michelin, the tire people, tweeted the other day that now the full range of Michelin agricultural tires is now available on Farming Simulator.
[42:15.000 –> 42:17.000] Why?
[42:17.000 –> 42:21.000] That’s a thing.
[42:21.000 –> 42:28.000] The point of Farming Simulator is realism. And if you want realism you have to go full capitalism.
[42:28.000 –> 42:33.000] And you have to get your Michelin branded tires.
[42:33.000 –> 42:40.000] Yep. I mean I cannot argue with any part of that sentence as much as I might want to.
[42:40.000 –> 42:43.000] My want to is very fair. Cool.
[42:43.000 –> 42:51.000] So we’ve got two games that I think are brand new announced in the Direct as well.
[42:51.000 –> 42:56.000] The first of those is Garden Buddies. Look at these little buddies.
[42:56.000 –> 43:00.000] I’ll read out their blog as I usually do.
[43:01.000 –> 43:05.000] Unleash your inner gardener and immerse yourself in the serene world of Garden Buddies.
[43:05.000 –> 43:12.000] Cultivating a vibrant flower garden alongside your new friend Muttsy who looks like an apple.
[43:12.000 –> 43:16.000] Discover an enchanting and fulfilling experience to relieve your stress.
[43:16.000 –> 43:18.000] I don’t know about this one.
[43:18.000 –> 43:21.000] The little buddies. The little garden buddies.
[43:21.000 –> 43:23.000] I don’t know. I don’t know.
[43:23.000 –> 43:26.000] I need to see. I have not actually watched the trailer.
[43:26.000 –> 43:32.000] It looks like you’re kind of like building out, you know, designing your backyard.
[43:32.000 –> 43:34.000] Essentially where you’re maybe hanging out with the buddies.
[43:34.000 –> 43:40.000] And there’s some mini games that look like, you know, was it Pokemon and Me where you cleaned them?
[43:40.000 –> 43:43.000] Whatever the version of like cleaning your Pokemon is and like a rhythm game.
[43:43.000 –> 43:46.000] I don’t know. This is just not doing it for me.
[43:46.000 –> 43:49.000] This is going to be one of those ones that I really would love to enjoy playing.
[43:49.000 –> 43:54.000] But I just, I feel like with these sorts of games there’s just no direction.
[43:54.000 –> 43:56.000] And I can’t even make direction myself.
[43:56.000 –> 43:58.000] It’s just like, oh, just play with your buddies.
[43:58.000 –> 44:00.000] And I’m like, okay.
[44:00.000 –> 44:04.000] But like, no, at least with farming games you can, you can.
[44:04.000 –> 44:08.000] So this is what my, like I need, this is what I’m going to do.
[44:08.000 –> 44:12.000] Not just a hangout, which I’m sure lots of people really like.
[44:12.000 –> 44:14.000] But yeah, that’s not my whole thing.
[44:14.000 –> 44:17.000] And the other one is Bubblegum Galaxy.
[44:17.000 –> 44:23.000] Bubblegum Galaxy is a cozy narrative building game about rebuilding the galaxy tile by tile.
[44:23.000 –> 44:30.000] Discover and design new planets, complete missions, explore your office and befriend your coworkers.
[44:30.000 –> 44:32.000] I’m very confused about that last bit there.
[44:32.000 –> 44:35.000] All while trying to find out who deleted the galaxy.
[44:35.000 –> 44:44.000] So is the idea here that you were working in some like extra universal office and your job is to create the universe?
[44:44.000 –> 44:48.000] They didn’t really explain what the office is, but they were like, yes, there’s an office.
[44:48.000 –> 44:51.000] And then you sit at this computer and you create galaxies.
[44:51.000 –> 45:00.000] Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I’m guessing this is like, yeah, the office is like in charge of the universe or something for some reason.
[45:00.000 –> 45:06.000] Yeah. And it was like, you know, the managers had like computer, all of the people maybe had like computer head things.
[45:06.000 –> 45:12.000] It was, yeah, it’s like, what if God bought office?
[45:12.000 –> 45:15.000] Yeah, a little bit.
[45:15.000 –> 45:17.000] Which is like maybe an interesting idea.
[45:17.000 –> 45:22.000] I’m willing to play with it. I quite like, it’s an interesting art style.
[45:22.000 –> 45:28.000] I like that it’s, so it’s a, I always forget the word for this kind of 45 degree top down.
[45:28.000 –> 45:34.000] Anyway, whatever you’re looking kind of 45 degrees down on on this tile based world.
[45:34.000 –> 45:39.000] But you can rotate it like so many of these games where you’re kind of putting tiles down, you can’t rotate it.
[45:39.000 –> 45:41.000] It’s just like you get what you get.
[45:41.000 –> 45:49.000] Yeah, but the actual gameplay gave me like Dorfromantik, but with actual point vibes.
[45:49.000 –> 45:51.000] Yes, yes, that’s a good weapon.
[45:51.000 –> 45:57.000] But to be honest, it kind of just made me want to not play Bubblegum Galaxy and to just go back and play more Dorfromantik.
[45:57.000 –> 46:00.000] I don’t know that I need a point when I’m playing that game.
[46:00.000 –> 46:05.000] Yeah, it just it, I think, because like, so there was Garden.
[46:05.000 –> 46:11.000] There’s a Garden Galaxy was the one I was playing earlier this year, which was similar sort of thing.
[46:11.000 –> 46:16.000] And what I didn’t like about it was that there wasn’t really a point and you were just Yeah, Garden Galaxy.
[46:16.000 –> 46:19.000] You were just kind of doing it. I didn’t really like that.
[46:19.000 –> 46:25.000] So if we can do that, but there actually be a point that sounds like what I would enjoy.
[46:25.000 –> 46:27.000] Yeah, I like the look of it. I think it looks cool.
[46:27.000 –> 46:34.000] Wow, I don’t know about you, Johnny. I’m exhausted. We just did a marathon, but sprinted it all the way.
[46:34.000 –> 46:53.000] Yeah, I mean, it’s a lot of games because, you know, and we just talked about the games where there was something new showing, you know, there’s so much like I was reminded of so much watching through all of the trailers, you know, like this, there’s some great games coming out.
[46:53.000 –> 47:04.000] The one, you know, I don’t think there’s anything new showing but Solarpunk and just like reminded of how much that game looks like automation the game, you know, and how much Al is going to love that.
[47:04.000 –> 47:06.000] So much cool stuff.
[47:06.000 –> 47:15.000] Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I agree. I do. I do want to go back on a point that I think Yeah, I think we could we could spread these a little bit out more.
[47:15.000 –> 47:25.000] Not doing all of this in one week. I know people love E3, loved E3 and wanted to recreate E3 but different. And I’m saying maybe we could not do that.
[47:25.000 –> 47:29.000] But people didn’t like E3 because E3 no longer exists.
[47:29.000 –> 47:38.000] Yeah, I don’t think they liked the actual E3 but I think they like the concept of this is a week where all of the game developers talk about everything for some reason.
[47:38.000 –> 47:51.000] Yeah, I’m not into it. I want things to come out. Just just release when you’re ready. You know, if this Wholesome Direct was for, you know, 15 minute things over the course of a year. Oh my god, that would be so much better.
[47:51.000 –> 47:55.000] Well, it would probably be over the course of six months because remember, they do another one halfway.
[47:55.000 –> 47:57.000] Oh my god, it’s too much.
[47:57.000 –> 48:01.000] That one’s a wholesome snack. And it’s only 45 minutes long.
[48:01.000 –> 48:04.000] That is one big snack.
[48:04.000 –> 48:10.000] I know. I know. Right. All right. I think I think that’s all the news.
[48:10.000 –> 48:15.000] I can guarantee it is not all the news but it is all the news we are covering today.
[48:15.000 –> 48:23.000] Listeners, if there’s something that you saw in the Wholesome Direct that you thought we should have covered, let us know and we can talk about it next week.
[48:23.000 –> 48:28.000] We, Jonny won’t be in it. I can talk about it next week with my other co host.
[48:28.000 –> 48:39.000] Also, if you want to tell us what your favorite game from the direct is, you can either do that on Twitter at THS pod.
[48:39.000 –> 48:52.000] You can do it in our slack. If you’re a patron, if you go to patreon.com slash THS pod, you can argue with us about what the best one is there because that’s what slacks for right complaining and arguing in a good way.
[48:52.000 –> 48:57.000] In a fun and loving way, we can complain about everything. Or you can complain about us.
[48:57.000 –> 49:06.000] For some reason today in the slack we were talking about unpacking, which is not a game that we talk about on this podcast, but that’s fine.
[49:06.000 –> 49:14.000] If you want to follow me on Twitter, you can do that at thescottbot. I’m also on mastodon.scott under the same username.
[49:14.000 –> 49:17.000] Jonny just exists in real life. He doesn’t exist on the internet.
[49:17.000 –> 49:20.000] I exist in the slack sometimes.
[49:20.000 –> 49:26.000] Yeah, I think that’s fair. I think you do. You generally reply when I ask you something.
[49:26.000 –> 49:29.000] Like, are we recording on Saturday?
[49:29.000 –> 49:40.000] Cool. If you can get links to all of those and all of the things we’ve talked about, both in our show notes and on our website, harvestseason.club.
[49:40.000 –> 49:48.000] Come and come and do so. I’m tired. Until next time, farmers, have a good harvest.
[49:48.000 –> 50:02.000] The harvest season is created by Al McKinley with support from our patrons, including our pro farmers, Kevin, Stuart and Alisa.
[50:02.000 –> 50:07.000] Our art is done by Micah the Brave and our music is done by Nick Burgess.
[50:07.000 –> 50:14.000] Feel free to visit our website harvestseason.club for show notes and links to things we discussed in this episode.
[50:18.000 –> 50:28.000] We are now recording in three different places. Excellent. Great. Great.