Fae Farm
Game Title: Fae Farm
Released: September 8, 2023
Game Length: 66 Hours
Grade: A-
Houses
Character: There is a way to increase the maximum of all three of your vital bars for your character. It includes crafting "cozy furniture" directly within your home from things such as lumber, ore, and gems. The comforting chairs and cushions will increase your health, relaxing tables will increase your energy, and inspiring objects will increase your mana. You do not need to build these in every house. Only the primary one that you wake up in will be counted.
Decorations: Flooring and wallpaper can be changed from a list of compatible items from your storage shed. They must be unlocked by finding their scroll in the world, bartering from the vendors, or unlocked through the job system. They can be crafted and placed within the home without a station present as long as you have the resources available. However, the items you wish to place on top of them must be crafted from the Decorating Table, within your inventory, and physically planted. Very specific items can only be placed on wall slots, though they might not quite fit as high or low as you want them to be. Most decorations can be physically rotated or moved. Time will freeze during this process.
Advancement: There are a total of four houses you can obtain - an additional one for each mine you clear. Each one has their own house, shed, well, and field. The first three come with their own barn and animal types you can place inside. There is a limit of six animals for each barn. You can name each of the houses and the signs will be adjusted accordingly. Fast travel to the first and third houses will also change names. This feature can be modified from your bed.
Animals: You can assign two different types of animals per barn. One generally provides you some form of cloth. The first two barns will offer some kind of food with the third one giving a special kind of material that builds magical crops without the need of using magic fertilizer every time. You can purchase the animals directly from the farmers or sell them from the register by the barn. Breeding the animals takes some time to figure out. You must have first purchased an animal, registered them, and increase their happiness before a farmer will accept them. To purchase a charm that changes their color or their maximum happiness another mark will require you to be holding the material in your inventory. You can breed an animal while having a full barn but will not be able to register the new little one until you sell one to make room. The animal must be physically brought to the farmer to breed and left there for a few days. You are unable to buy more animals, even if you have a free slot available, until the breeding process finishes. While you can have multiple stables breeding animals, only one can done at a time per barn.
Systems
Prelude: Many things are not available until you complete the first mine. This means completing the quest to reach the end of all 25 levels, reaching the sprite at the end, and preparing a feast to calm them down. You do not have to lock down every level since the last one will automatically lock without any requirements. This will let you quickly travel back with the proper ingredients for the quest. In addition to being able to double jump, you will finally be able to unlock job quests and shipping contracts.
Jobs: There is a type of job for every activity from searching for a compass somewhere in the world to crafting meals. They have a total of 10 achievements and one final meta achievement associated with it.They have since allowed you to have one of every job active at the same time but you will still need to make sure you accept and turn in each one as you progress through them. They are not retroactive. If you aren't careful, you'll find yourself going back to areas you have been before if you do not keep up with them. The rewards can somewhat be trivial most of the time but do occasionally give you something unique after completing a fair number of them.
Shipping: A bulletin board becomes available after you clear away the whirlpools. Every two weeks, you have a chance to pick one of three different offers. You are not able to do the other two choices once you select one. Obtain the necessary items and turn them in directly to the board for a monetary reward.
Farming
Crops: The game redesigns some revolutionary changes to how the crop system works. The merchant supplies only the most basic crops at all times. These can be planted and use any season. Gaining levels will unlock additional crops from the vendor. In order to get their seasonal variant, you will need to throw some magic pixie dust over them. Some of these are required to barter or craft ingredients such as flour. They will break down as three ingredients instead of two at the cutting board. The transformation is not guaranteed. You can also churn crops back into seeds at the garden bench. In order to get their fae variant, you will need to do this process on your third farm within the magical realm or craft the special plots using the material off the animals in the realm. Unlike their standard crops, these will break down into reagents required for making potions.
Flowers: When you begin playing the game, do not underestimate the power of the flowers. They are required for bartering color palettes, wings, and other important cosmetics. They do not wither like crops when a new season begins. Once you pluck one, another flower will begin growing underneath. If you leave a spot between two flowers that are fully grown without picking them, there is a big chance another will grow between them. They do not grow diagonally or to the side. Then begins the cross-pollination game. Like crops, the village will only sell you three basic flowers: red rose, yellow tulip, and white lilies. Unlock the next merchant after clearing the second mine for three more flowers: Blue Hyacinth, Green Zinnia, and Magenta Trillium. Between the six seeds, you will need to grow all kinds of different colored flowers. The color isn't always guaranteed and depends on which ones you have in each spot. Another thing to note is that you can reclaim the flowers while in the ground as seeds through the construction menu.
Trees: Like crops, merchants only sell the basic tree seeds. The standard beech and oak trees cost very little if you want to mass produce some lumber. Though at the price of 450 florins each, buying a fruit tree might seem like a wise decision at the start of the game when they only provide fruit during a specific season. This is when Propagation Hives come in handy. You will need at least one bee and two trees with fruit on them for a chance of another tree to grow, perhaps even a seasonal variant. This chance increases the number of bees available and expends one everyday. If you need more, use a bee potion and run through the hives. Unlike crops, any fruit that grows will remain on the tree even out of season. You can move trees around your field like any other standard decoration. They do not require a tool or bed.
Combat
The Mines: There are three different mines with their own set of enemies and attack patterns. This is the only areas you will engage in combat. Your actions will be reduced to harvesting or attacking. The second mine will require you to make a Fairbreath Potion to counter the poisonous mist. The third mine will require a Fireproof Potion to counter the heat. Instead of swords and daggers, your staff is used as your weapon. As you meet with each of the sprites in the world, you will learn how to use spells (if you have enough mana).
Spells: There are four spells you can learn when meeting the sprites after clearing the mines. Each one is generally used to unlock a new area but also can have additional purposes. Vortex allows you to clear the clouds in the way of the magical realm but they can pull out foraging items or repel enemies. Faerie Fire lights up the pathway for the energy bridges but they can also create fireballs in the mines. Charm calms down the lava monsters blocking the way but can also stop attacks from everyone around you. Bash will break open those mysterious orange rocks and push monsters away.
Potions: After you clear the first mine, you will soon be able to create various potions. Most of these will assist you within the mines. There are potions that will prevent damage, enhance your strikes, provide auras, increase your speed, or make you invisible. These may require material that is broken down from things grown within the magical realm such as crops or grass. Other potions might appear frivolous from their description but have some very useful benefits. Breaking a bee potion will have you be chased by a swarm of them but they will secretly add to any hives you might have along the way. A wind potion will pull up any herbs, flowers, or crops that are ready for harvest. A sad potion actually causes a rain cloud that follows you around to water the plants.
Movement
Animals: Over the period of the day, your animals will poke their heads out of the barn two at a time. You can ring the bell to keep them in or force them out. Unless you designate an area for them to keep to with an Animal Lure, they will roam freely around the field. Each one has a range of animations from rolling in the dirt, jumping over objects, or following close behind you. You can have one follow you around. You can even dance with them!
Critters: Using a butterfly net to catch the near one hundred bugs, frogs, and other mystical creatures can be quite crucial to your farm. There are four types of conservatories that will turn these little oddballs into a crafting reagent. For example, butterflies will turn into dust for invisibility potions. Frogs will turn into sweat that is essential for making rain clouds. The honey hive is a rather unique station that turns bees into honeycombs (which is used to make honey). Most will stick to a specific area or season with the rarer ones, marked with a sparkle, occasionally spawning that offers twice the number of ingredients. Each one has their own pattern of movement, can avoid your butterfly net by rapidly moving to an unreachable height, and can scare off if you get too close. Surprisingly, they can now blink too.
Characters: The vast majority of characters will not move from their position. They will continue to offer the same kind of items to buy all year round. This can cause a slight problem when you can't remember if you bought something before. They will come out early in the morning and leave late at night. There are a few, such as the adventurous Cleo, that will travel between the sites. When you clear the first mine, you'll get some strange visitors that will roam the countryside. Clear the second mine and you'll find a bunch of elves return to the magical realm. Every season, there will be a fun little quest that leads up to a day of festivities. There are no mini-games or special activities on that day. The town will gather around Town Hall with a barter full of exclusive items. Making relationships doesn't seem to provide you with anything new. Friendship quests are only available for the day, disappear if you log out, and require an extraordinary amount of goods that must be hand-delivered. Getting married is as simple as paying 10,000 coins for a ceremony to have them stick around on your farm.
Gameplay
Boosts: Increasing the levels of your skills does more than unlock new items. They will also provide you with a chance of earning some energy back, increase the number of items earned, or hit with the quality of two strikes. If there is some harmful effect in a mine or you are running low on something, a prompt with a button press will appear below with whatever you might have in your inventory. There are a number of other things that will help increase your stamina and magic. If you manage to sleep before the day is up, you will wake up with a momentary early rise perk. Sometime in the afternoon, you will gain a sort of second wind. When night falls, orbs can be collected around the map for one last chance for some activity.
Interface: You can modify the game time to make it slower. Time does stop when you are accessing your inventory, decorating, or constructing objects. Time does not stop when you are at a crafting station. Some of the tools, such as shovel and axe, are lumped together as to automatically switch when you touch something that requires them. Other things such as your butterfly net and fishing pole must be manually selected since a trigger isn't available. You are capable of swimming in the game but there is a boundary that will reset you. Fishing requires them to actually see the lure as you pull it back. You can change it in options so you can pull while pressing the button or pressing a button swaps your stance. All sheds are linked together, with an endless supply of inventory slots. You can press a button to toss all items that are currently inside the shed from your inventory or another that tosses the entire stack of the selected slot. There are a number of small details like how you can recharge your watering can while swimming, get pushed back if you hit the saw on an active lumber mill, and how a critter digging underground can drag you away.
Problems: As I waited a number of months before actually playing this game, many of the initial woes were essentially fixed through a number of patches. The first problem is that the initial asking price for Nintendo Switch is $60 when the non-Deluxe version on Steam is $40. Your name cannot be changed within the game and automatically sets it up as your username. However, there are ways to change it outside the game. There was a massive problem with how information is displayed through things such as the Almanac that was quickly fixed. Other minor things were how waving at your pet didn't complete the quest or trying to find sardines was difficult. Touching signs still resets your tool to the default as well. Patch 1.4.0 and Patch 2.1.0 brought some essential changes to the game clock so that it would pause when accessing the shed or mailbox, correctly pauses when you use a shortcut to access the interface, pauses during the black loading transition when entering buildings, pauses when you access construction or decoration mode, and halts timers when the game is paused.
Options
Coasts of Croakia DLC: The wide-shot of the trailer makes it appear much larger than you can explore in the game. However, there is still quite a bit of depth compared to other regions. You can fall into a cave system or enter through two openings. There are platforms that function as elevators and mushrooms that will launch you over to other sections of the map. You can catch deep fish early without the need of nearly completing the game. Water puddles on the plants will spawn a random item from a short list of collectables. They provide you a good source of frogs and bees for some much needed resources. The biggest feature is the ability to befriend critters, instead of capturing them with a butterfly net, and have them follow you like a barn animal. Trinkets can be made and equipped to increase your stats and ability perks. While the substance of this add-on doesn't quite match the price, there is enough for those who are fans of the game.
Skies of Azoria DLC: I will add a notation here for the add-on that was released at the same time this review was developed. They released a trailer if you want to see what it is about. Please be aware that both DLC bundles are available in the Deluxe Edition.
Multiplayer: While I don't generally play with friends, there are a number of features available that help support it. There are a number of very expressive emotes that you can perform. Whenever you are trying to interact with something, a thought bubble will appear above your head. There is an entire list full of commands that you can choose to display for other players. These include telling your teammates that you need health, listing something specific that needs to be built, or asking people to follow you. Any item that is available within the Almanac database can be pulled into your request.
Summary
Review: The game does a splendid job providing you a number of features. You can grow crops, raise barn animals, capture bugs, cut down trees, mine for goods, decorate your farms, and fish. Multiplayer is well-supported with a number of ways to express yourself to you and others. The environment is pleasant to look at and the story is decent for this type of game. Many of the systems are built in an unorthodox and overly complex way with a fixed number of spots to sell items each day, the unusual methods to grow alternative crops and trees, and how some things only become available as you complete content. The weakest part of the game has to be with how small everything feels. Most of the villagers don't move, interact, or care to build a relationship with you. They function as merchants that offer you rudimentary jobs and random requests that are only available for a short time. Still, the amount of substance justifies the $40 price tag. I do recommend this game. There is a demo available if you wish to try it out first.