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