Harvest Island

This is absolutely a hidden gem of a game. It's a bit slow to start, but once you get going? Buckle up for a wild ride. This game does an incredible job of making you feel unnerved and creeped out just as you start to feel safe again. The story is far darker than I initially thought it was, I thought I was getting a "stardew-like game with a twist" and what I got was so much more than that. I highly recommend it!

Farming/horror mishmash with RPGMaker vibes. The game wins a lot of points for the degree of freedom it gives you in how you're able to explore and progress while still maintaining the atmosphere. The early game relies a lot on menus and repeating simple tasks and gathering lists of items. If you're playing on normal mode, the inventory/stamina systems encourage doing these at first, as the rewards you get enable you to explore much farther. As you gather enough stamina and space, you become inclined to ignore the farming mechanics and focus more heavily on exploring the unknown, encountering horrors, and advancing the narrative. I've seen people criticize the shallowness of the farming mechanics but I think they play well into the narrative, as it feels like you're outgrowing your small pen and gradually getting yourself into more trouble as you push the boundaries you've been given. The characters have a lot of dialog back-and-forth throughout the game that also reinforces this shift. As you begin to question why you're doing the things you're doing, so do they. The pacing here is important to keep emotional investment so you don't get too bogged down in any one aspect and ruin the horror atmosphere. Seeing responses from the developer working on the 2.0 version of the game, I slightly worry that adding too many new mechanics may actually disrupt the narrative balance and tone of the game. I would argue the weakest aspects of this game are mostly QoL like tracking lists of required items, inventory management and crafting being a little more cumbersome than necessary, and some slightly too esoteric exploration paths and event flags. The ending also feels abrupt and somewhat scattershot, as a lot of narrative reveals are given in short order and then left partially unresolved. The buildup doesn't feel like it gets the payoff it deserves as it is right now. The journey is fun regardless, especially aided by the character writing. Will and Samantha have a very cute sibling dynamic and react realistically to their environment and the narrative. You see their initial bickering and play slowly get put aside as they become more focused on external factors. It does a good job depicting how a couple kids might deal with situations way above their maturity level. They become erratic and undergo large personality shifts as they begin having issues denying and compartmentalizing the horrors and have to prop each other up to keep going. It makes you want to root for them to succeed and get their simple lives back. A lot of horror games forget to make you care about the characters so this was a nice surprise. This is the game's strongest point and why I think it's worth the recommendation even if there are some janky mechanics and narrative cruft. Around 15-20 hours, give or take depending on how much you engage with optional mechanics and hunt for additional endings.

I bought this game about 2 Years ago but forgot about it soon after I started a story-mode playthrough. Now Some days ago I have rememberedd about this game and wanted to start again and finish it this time. It was an absolute blast. I love the story, really enjoy the gameplay and the puzzles and also really like the characters (Samantha starts annoying, but at the end was my absolute favourite character while will had an interesting story arc which however sometimes was really frustrating). I would absolutely recommend to play normal mode and to not play story mode, as i think there is not enough time to really start to empathize with the characters and to get to know them. I also really liked the similarities of the story to the story of "The Promised Neverland"(which I did not finish as of writing this review) and also the subtle (pherhaps unintended(?) critic on animal farming) All in all, great game, would recommend. I especially enjoyed the sheer amount of secrets which give you some "advanteges" like the Fox, the Seal, Garfield,... However, there is some valid criticism: The End feels somehow abrupt for will, yes i do unterstand why this is the case. However i think this could somehow have been avoided by deepen samanthas ending. I would like it if the mouse could do something instead of just using WASD or the arrows. In some sections there are a little bit to many "scares" which make them not scary but more 'annoying'

Ich liebe Farminggames wie Stardew Valley und ich liebe RPG Maker Horror! Das Spiel kombiniert Beides! Aktuell spiele ich den Storymodus. Und dieser kann wegen der Dialoge zwischen Will und seiner Schwester sehr ziehend wirken - die Beziehung zwischen den Beiden ist aber genau richtig. Samatha muss nervig sein ... xD Ich kann aber empfehlen, dass ihr während des Storymodus euch wirklich darauf konzentriert, die ganzen Erntegaben für die Statuen zu sammeln und euren Hof auszubauen. Sonst wirken die Horrorsequenzen dazwischen sehr öde, weil es erst spannender wird, sobald du mit der Geschichte voran kommst!

Amazing balance to the gameplay. I constantly forgot I was playing a horror game which made it hit hard when I got to the next story beat.

Really engaging, love the cosy-but-unsettling vibes of this game! Great story, fun to play.

I think I like this game.

I enjoyed this cozy farming game with dark horror tones way more than expected